The Man with the Hoe Written after seeing Millet's World-Famous Painting God made man in His own image, in the image of God made He him.-Genesis. Bowed by the weight of centuries, he leans The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back, the burden of the world. Who made him dead to rapture and despair, c hopes, Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? M3 Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? 4 Whose breath blew out the light within this 3 brain? The Man with the Hoe Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave To have dominion over sea and land; To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; To feel the passion of Eternity? Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns And pillared the blue firmament with light? Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf There is no shape more terrible than thisMore tongued with censure of the world's blind greed More filled with signs and portents for the soul More fraught with menace to the universe. What gulfs between him anù the seraphim! rose? The Man with the Hoe Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop; O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, How will you ever straighten up this shape; Give back the upward looking and the light; O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, world? The Man with the Hoe How will it be with kingdoms, and with kings With those who shaped him to the thing he is When this dumb Terror shall reply to God, A Look into the Gulf I looked one night, and there Semiramis, "The bugles! they are crying back again— Bugles that broke the nights of Babylon, And then went crying on through Nineveh. Stand back, ye trembling messengers of ill! towers: |