{"id":6922,"date":"2010-05-10T13:59:32","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T20:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/?p=6922"},"modified":"2010-05-11T18:37:39","modified_gmt":"2010-05-12T01:37:39","slug":"the-man-with-the-hoe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/?p=6922","title":{"rendered":"“The Man with the Hoe”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Universalist poet Edwin Markham wrote the poem below; he first presented it at a public reading in 1898, and it was first published in the San Francisco Examiner<\/em> on 15 January 15 1899. The poem was republished many times thereafter, and reportedly earned Markham a quarter of a million dollars over his lifetime.1<\/sup><\/a> When you read it, you’ll see that it is a poem based on the Universalist notion of the supreme worth of every human being.<\/p>\n

In the early 20th century, Markham moved to Staten Island, New York, where he lived on Waters Ave.,1<\/sup><\/a> not far from where my father lived at that time. My father still remembers Markham’s visit his elementary school. Markham lived in Staten Island until his death in 1940.<\/p>\n

The Man with the Hoe<\/strong><\/p>\n

Written after seeing Millet’s World-Famous Painting<\/a><\/em>
\n     God made man in His own image,<\/small>
\n     in the image of God made He him. — Genesis<\/em>.<\/small><\/p>\n

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
\nUpon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
\nThe emptiness of ages in his face,
\nAnd on his back the burden of the world.
\nWho made him dead to rapture and despair,—
\nA thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
\nStolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
\nWho loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
\nWhose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
\nWhose breath blew out the light within this brain?
\nIs this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
\nTo have dominion over sea and land;
\nTo trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
\nTo feel the passion of Eternity?
\nIs this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
\nAnd marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
\nDown all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
\nThere is no shape more terrible than this —
\nMore tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed—
\nMore filled with signs and portents for the soul—
\nMore fraught with menace to the universe. <\/p>\n

What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
\nSlave of the wheel of labor, what to him
\nAre Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
\nWhat the long reaches of the peaks of song,
\nThe rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
\nThrough this dread shape the suffering ages look;
\nTime’s tragedy is in that aching stoop;
\nThrough this dread shape humanity betrayed,
\nPlundered, profaned and disinherited,
\nCries protest to the Judges of the World,
\nA protest that is also prophecy.<\/p>\n

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
\nIs this the handiwork you give to God,
\nThis monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
\nHow will you ever straighten up this shape;
\nTouch it again with immortality;
\nGive back the upward looking and the light;
\nRebuild in it the music and the dream;
\nMake right the immemorial infamies,
\nPerfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?<\/p>\n

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
\nHow will the Future reckon with this Man?
\nHow answer his brute question in that hour
\nWhen whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?
\nHow will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
\nWith those who shaped him to the thing he is—
\nWhen this dumb Terror shall reply to God,
\nAfter the silence of the centuries? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Universalist poet Edwin Markham wrote the poem below; he first presented it at a public reading in 1898, and it was first published in the San Francisco Examiner on 15 January 15 1899. The poem was republished many times thereafter, and reportedly earned Markham a quarter of a million dollars over his lifetime.1 When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[204],"class_list":["post-6922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberal-religion","tag-universalist-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6922"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6929,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6922\/revisions\/6929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}