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The Man with the Hoe

by Edwin Markham

48 of 72 · Contents · Download EPUB

The Climb of Life

There’s a feel of all things flowing,
  And no power of Earth can bind them;
There’s a sense of all things growing,
And through all their forms a-glowing
  Of the shaping souls behind them.

And the break of beauty heightens
  With the swiftening of the motion,
And the soul behind it lightens,
As a gleam of splendor whitens
  From a running wave of ocean.

See the still hand of the Shaper,
  Moving in the dusk of being:
Burns at first a misty taper,
Like the moon in veil of vapor,
  When the rack of night is fleeing.

In the stone a dream is sleeping,
  Just a tinge of life, a tremor;
In the tree a soul is creeping—
Last, a rush of angels sweeping
  With the skies beyond the dreamer.

So the Lord of Life is flinging
  Out a splendor that conceals Him:
And the God is softly singing
And on secret ways is winging,
  Till the rush of song reveals Him.

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