Edwin Markham - Face Quotes

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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?

Edwin Markham

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.

Edwin Markham

So I go to the long adventure, lifting
My face to the far, mysterious goals,
To the last assize, to the final sifting
Of gods and stars and souls.

Edwin Markham

It was ages ago in life's first wonder
I found you, Virgilia, wild sea-heart;
And 'twas ages ago that we went asunder,
Ages and worlds apart. Your luminous face and your hair's dark glory,
I knew them of old by an ocean-stream,
In a far, first world now turned to story,
Now faded back to dream.

Edwin Markham