Social Commentaries

The Climb of Life

by Edwin Markham 1852–1940

From The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899)

Social Commentaries

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.

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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