Social Commentaries
The Climb of Life
From The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899)
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.
Cite this poem
MLA
Markham, Edwin. “The Climb of Life.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/markham/51/.
Chicago
Markham, Edwin. “The Climb of Life.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/markham/51/.
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