Edwin Markham Quotes

Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; Time's tragedy is in the aching stoop; Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, Plundered, profaned, and disinherited, Cries protest to the Powers that made the world. A protest that is also a prophecy.

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden of the world. Who made him dead to rapture and despair, A thing that grieves not and that never hopes. Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

I will find you there where our low life heightens, Where the door of the Wonder again unbars, Where the old love lures and the old fire whitens, In the Stars behind the stars.

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, Is this the handiwork you give to God, This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?

The crest and crowning of all good,
Life’s final star, is Brotherhood; For it will bring again to Earth Her long-lost Poesy and Mirth; Will send new light on every face, A kingly power upon the race. And till it come, we men are slaves, And travel downward to the dust of graves.

As we go star-stilled in the mystic garden, All the prose of this life run there to rhyme, How eagerly then will the poor heart pardon All of these hurts of Time! Ah, yes, in that hour of our souls dream-driven, In that high, white hour, O my wild sea-bride, The tears and the years will be all forgiven, … And all be justified.