The Full Text of “Cross”
1My old man’s a white old man
2And my old mother’s black.
3If ever I cursed my white old man
4I take my curses back.
5If ever I cursed my black old mother
6And wished she were in hell,
7I’m sorry for that evil wish
8And now I wish her well.
9My old man died in a fine big house.
10My ma died in a shack.
11I wonder where I’m gonna die,
12Being neither white nor black?
The Full Text of “Cross”
1My old man’s a white old man
2And my old mother’s black.
3If ever I cursed my white old man
4I take my curses back.
5If ever I cursed my black old mother
6And wished she were in hell,
7I’m sorry for that evil wish
8And now I wish her well.
9My old man died in a fine big house.
10My ma died in a shack.
11I wonder where I’m gonna die,
12Being neither white nor black?
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“Cross” Introduction
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"Cross," by the American poet Langston Hughes (1902–1967), is a short poem about the challenges of being a biracial person in a racist society. The poem's speaker, who was born to a white father and a Black mother, feels deep uncertainty about life due to this biracial heritage. "Being neither white nor black," the speaker wonders what life holds in store and struggles to navigate the ambiguities of biracial identity in a prejudiced world. First published in The Weary Blues in 1926, during the artistic movement known as the Harlem Renaissance, "Cross" is a critique of racism and a poignant testament to complex racial experience.
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“Cross” Summary
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The speaker, who was born to a white father and a Black mother, says that if they've said bad things about their white father in the past, they regret it.
If the speaker ever said bad, damning things about their Black mother, the speaker regrets having said those things and now thinks of her kindly.
The speaker's father died in a large, nice home. The speaker's mother died in a small, run-down house. The speaker wonders what kind of circumstances they'll die in, being biracial.
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“Cross” Themes
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Racism and Biracial Identity
“Cross” reflects on the complexities of being a mixed-race person in a racist world. The speaker, who was born to a white father and a Black mother, admits to feeling anger in the past toward both parents—anger that stemmed from the difficulty of being biracial. Now, the speaker retracts that anger, understanding that the racism the speaker has faced isn't their family’s fault. “Being neither white nor black,” the speaker is painfully aware that they fit neither into their father’s nor their mother’s world; there’s no real place for them in a racially prejudiced society. Racism, the poem suggests, makes life difficult and uncertain for people who don’t fit into a clear (and ultimately reductive) racial category.
The speaker’s anger with their parents reflects the pressures of being biracial in a society that discriminates based on strict racial categories. In such a society, the poem implies, this speaker must have had trouble fitting in anywhere; race would have been a constant source of tension and confusion.
Not being able to claim a fully white or Black identity once made the speaker mad at their parents: the speaker’s life has been difficult simply because the couple had a child! But the speaker also “take[s] my curses back” and is “sorry” for their past “evil wish[es]”—perhaps because the speaker now understands that their parents must have struggled with racist pressures themselves. The speaker notes that the couple even died in separate houses, a hint that they either split up or were never really allowed to be together. Once again, these details point to the pain and difficulty of multiracial relationships in a racist world.
Having seen how the world treated their parents differently, the speaker is left questioning how a biracial person can possibly fit into a racist society. The speaker’s father “died in a fine big house,” while the speaker’s mother “died in a shack.” These facts emphasize the dramatic inequality between white and Black people in the speaker’s world, but they also underscore how being white or Black, but not both, determines one’s fate.
Unlike the parents, the speaker is “neither white nor black,” which means the speaker's future is deeply uncertain. The speaker could end up like the “old man” and die in a big house, or like the “ma” and die in “a shack”—or somewhere in between! Clearly, this uncertainty is a lingering source of discomfort and difficulty for the speaker.
Despite making peace with both parents and with the past, the speaker can’t make absolute peace with being biracial because of the constant uncertainty it creates. By portraying one biracial person’s struggle, the poem critiques a cruelly reductive and racist society that can only see in black and white.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Cross”
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Lines 1-2
My old man’s a white old man
And my old mother’s black."Cross" begins with a simple statement about the race of the speaker's parents. Right off the bat, one meaning of the poem's title becomes clear: the speaker is a "cross" between a white man and a Black woman.
The poem's immediate focus on the speaker's biracial identity places the subject of race front and center. But while these first two lines communicate the races of the speaker's parents (and by extension, the race of the speaker), they don't tell readers much else. Where and when does the poem take place, readers might wonder, and what's the speaker's gender? What kind of relationship does the speaker have with their parents? For now, these things are unclear. This suggests just how important race is in the speaker's world: it apparently supersedes other considerations.
By focusing so exclusively on race, the speaker also sets up a stark contrast, or juxtaposition, between their white father and Black mother. The parents are not only different races but are also discussed in separate lines of the poem. This separation on the page subtly emphasizes their different experiences. In fact, the only things connecting them are the adjective "old," which the speaker uses to describe them both, and the fact that both of them are responsible for the speaker's existence. The difference—and distance—between the speaker's parents will be important later in the poem, when the speaker thinks about the dramatic inequality between white and Black people in this society.
Finally, let's examine the meter of these lines:
My | old man’s | a white | old man
And my | old moth- | er’s black.The first line contains a single stressed syllable ("My"), The second line has just three iambs, so it contains one less stressed syllable than the first line.
This looks a lot like common meter, a pattern of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Iambs are metrical feet that follow an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern; iambic tetrameter means there are four of these feet per line, while trimeter means there are three.
Common meter is often used for a special type of stanza called the ballad stanza (spoiler alert: the three stanzas of "Cross" are all ballad stanzas!). The alternation between four- and three-beat lines creates a highly musical sound that's good for both telling long stories and conveying intense emotion in short lyrics, such as "Cross."
Of course, these lines don't fit common meter perfectly: line 1 is missing a beat, and it's possible to read extra stresses onto "old" in each line. These lines are a good example of the way Langston Hughes subtly experimented with traditional form and meter in order to make his poems—"Cross" included—more musical and expressive.
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Lines 3-4
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back. -
Lines 5-8
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I’m sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well. -
Lines 9-10
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack. -
Lines 11-12
I wonder where I’m gonna die,
Being neither white nor black?
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“Cross” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Rhetorical Question
The last two lines of "Cross" form a rhetorical question that reflects the speaker's uncertainty as a biracial person. "Being neither white nor black," the speaker is unsure what their life holds in store. Will the speaker die "in a fine big house," like their white father; "in a shack," like their Black mother; or some place in between? In other words, what will be their ultimate social fate in this racist society? Will they ever find success and a sense of belonging, or will they feel like an outsider forever?
The question is especially powerful because it ends the poem. It memorably critiques a society in which people are assigned to unequal, and uncertain, fates simply because of their race.
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
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Juxtaposition
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Repetition
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Parallelism
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Alliteration
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Consonance
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Pun
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"Cross" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Old Man
- Cursed/Curses
- Shack
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The speaker's father.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Cross”
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Form
"Cross" contains 12 lines divided into three four-line stanzas, a.k.a. quatrains. These stanzas belong to a special category called the ballad stanza, because they loosely follow a type of meter called common meter and use an ABCB rhyme scheme.
Though the ballad stanza is often used for long poems that tell an exciting story, it can also be used for shorter, more lyric poems, like "Cross." It's often associated with poetry that's meant to be sung or set to music, so it's not surprising that it appealed to Hughes, whose poetry was famously influenced by blues, jazz, and other popular music. ("Cross" originally appeared in Hughes's collection The Weary Blues.)
In a basic sense, the poem's three stanzas reflect the "Cross" of the title. The first stanza is about the speaker's white father, the second stanza is about the speaker's Black mother, and the third stanza is about the uncertainty the speaker feels as a biracial "cross" between the two.
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Meter
"Cross" contains three ballad stanzas, which follow an ABCB rhyme scheme and a special meter known as common meter.
In common meter, the lines alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. These two types of meter are named this way because their basic foot is the iamb (a unit consisting of an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable). Tetrameter has four feet per line (da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum), while trimeter has three (da-dum da-dum da-dum).
In general, then, the first and third lines of each stanza contain four strong beats, or stressed syllables, while the second and fourth lines (which share an end rhyme) contain three. Let's see how all of this works in the poem by taking a closer look at the first stanza:
My | old man’s | a white | old man
And my | old moth- | er’s black.
If ev- | er I cursed | my white | old man
I take | my curs- | es back.Notice how lines 1 and 3 have four stresses, while lines 2 and 4 have three. This stanza is an almost perfect example of common meter: a line of iambic tetrameter followed by a line of iambic trimeter—then rinse and repeat! But wait: why almost perfect? Line 1 is what's sometimes called a headless, or acephalous, line. It gets this funny name because the first iamb (unstressed-stressed) is missing its first unstressed syllable, leaving a single, lonely stress at the beginning of the line. The resulting line seems like a part of it has been cut off—in other words, it's "headless."
There's another small variation to the meter in this stanza. Look at line 3, where the second foot has three syllables (unstressed-unstressed-stressed) instead of the usual two. This foot is called an anapest, and poets will sometimes switch it in for an iamb to add a little rhythmic spice. Headless lines and anapestic substitutions are just two of the many ways poets vary common meter. The metrical flexibility of "Cross" makes the poem more musical, expressive, and true to the rhythms of everyday speech.
While the first two stanzas follow a more or less regular meter, the last stanza gets a little more ambiguous. Notice how line 9, for example, could sound like this:
My old | man died | in a fine | big house.
Or like this:
My old | man died | in a fine | big house.
There are multiple ways to hear the meter of this line, and none of them is necessarily the "right" way. Unlike a line of strict iambic tetrameter, it's a loose, complex line that offers different rhythmic possibilities. This rhythmic spark and sizzle is characteristic of Hughes, who often attempted to incorporate the rhythms of jazz, ragtime, and the blues into those of traditional European poetry. This stanza's metrical ambiguities also reflect the speaker's uncertainty about the future.
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Rhyme Scheme
"Cross" consists of three ballad stanzas, which typically follow an ABCB rhyme scheme. In other words, the second and fourth lines of ballad stanzas share an end rhyme, as they do here. The poem's overall rhyme scheme looks like this:
ABAB CDED FBHB
Note that the first stanza technically diverges from the usual scheme of the ballad stanza. The first and third lines, which usually don't rhyme, share an identical rhyme: "man." In fact, the entire phrase "white old man" repeats at the ends of these lines. While this feature is a little unusual, it doesn't throw the scheme off. The repetition of "white old man" simply emphasizes the racial identity of the speaker's father, which has been a source of anger for the speaker in the past and continues to be a cause of uncertainty in the present.
One other interesting thing to note about the poem's rhyme scheme is that the first stanza's B rhyme sound ("black" and "back") reappears in the third stanza ("shack" and "black"). Again, this feature is a little unusual, but it gives the poem a sense of symmetry and contributes to its musical quality. It's also a good example of Hughes's experimentation with traditional poetic forms, which was a hallmark of his style. Finally, the repetition of "black," much like the repetition of "white old man" in the first stanza, emphasizes the race of the speaker's mother and foregrounds the importance of race in the poem.
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“Cross” Speaker
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The speaker of "Cross" is only specifically identified by race: they're biracial, born to a white father and Black mother. Though the speaker isn't Langston Hughes himself, it's worth noting that Hughes, like many Black Americans, was multiracial, so his own experiences almost certainly informed the poem. Hughes personally knew the confusion and uncertainty of being "mixed-race" in a highly prejudiced society.
The speaker is a biracial person of unspecified gender and age, who previously resented both parents but has now forgiven them. Both parents have died, and death is on the speaker's mind. These details seem to indicate a speaker who has reached adulthood, and perhaps middle or old age.
It's possible, though not certain, that the speaker's mother was enslaved. During the centuries of slavery in America, it wasn't uncommon for white male slave owners to have children with their Black slaves; in fact, this was the case with two sets of Hughes's own great-grandparents. Whatever the identity of the speaker's parents, it's clear that the speaker used to feel anger toward them, as simply being biracial in a prejudiced world has created difficulty and uncertainty in the speaker's life. Now the speaker expresses regret for that anger, even as the difficulty and uncertainty linger.
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“Cross” Setting
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The setting of "Cross" is unspecified. Hughes wrote the poem in the 1920s in Harlem, the predominantly Black neighborhood of New York City, but it's unclear whether the poem takes place there. Historically speaking, the poem was composed well before the mid-20th-century Civil Rights Movement, during a period when Black Americans faced immense prejudice from society at large. Being biracial in America at that time—when Black and white people were strictly segregated and interracial marriage was outlawed—posed special difficulties, as it does for the poem's speaker.
However, the poem could also apply to other times and places, including earlier eras. It's possible that the speaker is the child of a slave-owning white man and an enslaved Black woman; this contrast may be suggested by the fact that the father died in a "fine big house," while the mother died in a mere "shack." Alternatively, these details might simply indicate that the two parents couldn't live together under their society's rules, and that the wealthy father either couldn't or wouldn't support the mother of his child.
Whatever the time and place of the poem, it's clear that the speaker lives in a deeply racist and unequal society, one that's especially hard for biracial people to navigate with certainty.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Cross”
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Literary Context
"Cross" was published in 1926 in Langston Hughes's debut poetry collection, The Weary Blues. Hughes was only 24 years old at the time, but the book marked the arrival of a major new voice in American letters. In poems such as "Cross," "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," and "I, Too," Hughes celebrated the richness and beauty of Black American experiences while critiquing the profound racism and inequality of American society.
With the book's publication, Hughes became a central figure in the growing literary, artistic, and cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. This movement was centered in Harlem, a predominantly Black neighborhood in New York City, and flourished during the 1920s and 1930s.
Along with writers such as Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, and James Weldon Johnson, Hughes brought unprecedented national and international attention to the rich variety of Black American life and art. At a time when many European and white American poets (including Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot) were writing highly allusive, difficult poems, the writers of the Harlem Renaissance gave readers an elegant, accessible look into the everyday experience of Black Americans.
Hughes's poems combined powerful lyricism and plain language, reflecting the realities of his city and country in a sophisticated yet popular manner. Hughes was strongly influenced by the musical scene in Harlem, and he was one of the innovators of Jazz Poetry, which sought to infuse poems with the rhythms of jazz, ragtime, and the blues. Hughes may even have expected many of the poems in The Weary Blues, including "Cross," to be sung with musical accompaniment in the Harlem nightclubs of the time. The poem exemplifies the deep engagement and experimentation with form and tradition that marked all of Hughes's work.
Among his most important influences, Hughes named Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, and Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the first Black American poets to gain a national reputation. His innovations in poetic sound and form, his memorable evocations of Black life, and his searching reflections on race in America continue to influence poets around the world.
Historical Context
When "Cross" was published in 1926, America was a highly segregated country, and racial prejudice was (as it still is) a defining aspect of society. Though the Civil War had ended slavery and Black Americans were guaranteed certain civil rights by the 14th and 15th amendments, Jim Crow laws fiercely enforced segregation and inequality in many states. Interracial marriage was prohibited by law, and romance across racial lines was widely frowned upon; it wasn't until 1967 (the year of Hughes's death) that the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, declared interracial marriage legal across the country.
Due in part to the dramatic segregation in Southern states in the decades after the Civil War, many Black Americans left the South for the North in the early part of the 20th century. This mass movement became known as the Great Migration, and it produced concentrated hubs of Black life in many northern cities.
The most prominent of these was Harlem, which became the heart of Black American culture in New York City and the nation as a whole. In the 1920s, when Hughes first lived and worked there, Harlem was a thriving cultural center, with a rich nightlife, music scene (dominated by ragtime, jazz, and the blues), and literary community. Black Americans owned and operated successful businesses, and the neighborhood gave rise to economic growth, social progress, and artistic experimentation.
All of these conditions created the ideal environment for the Harlem Renaissance. Nevertheless, American society at large, including New York City itself, remained starkly divided along racial lines, and the kind of prejudice and uncertainty faced by the speaker of "Cross" remained common. The writers of the movement thus depicted and criticized the racism of their society—as Hughes does in "Cross"—even as they celebrated the beauty of Black life.
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More “Cross” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of "Cross."
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What Is Jazz Poetry? — An introduction to Jazz Poetry, a writing style Hughes played an important part in creating.
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Hughes's Life and Work — A short biography of Hughes from the Academy of American Poets.
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What Was the Harlem Renaissance? — An immersive introduction to the Harlem Renaissance, the literary movement Hughes helped to shape.
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The Poet's Voice — Langston Hughes reads three of his poems.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Langston Hughes
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