The Gamut
The Gamut - context Summary
Publication in and Still I Rise
This poem, published in 1978 in Maya Angelou’s And Still I Rise, blends tenderness with mortality. The speaker treats 'my true love' as both a beloved and death personified, inviting soft day, wind, and birds to align with a loving mood while quietly preparing for departure. The recurring refrain of gentleness contrasts with the final impulse for death to come and the heart to quiet. Read as a meditation on love and loss, the poem suggests that parting can be accepted with grace, not fear.
Read Complete AnalysesSoft you day, be velvet soft, my true love approaches, look you bright, you dusty sun, array your golden coaches. Soft you wind, be soft as silk, my true love is speaking. Hold you birds, your silver throats, his golden voice I'm seeking. Come you death, in haste, do come, my shroud of black be weaving, quiet my heart, be deathly quiet, my true love is leaving.
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