The Man With The Hoe Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU V WWXYZA2B2C2C2C2O D2C2C2E2C2C2WD2D2 D2F2NC2D2D2C2D2| Written after seeing Millet's world famous painting | A |
| - | |
| - | |
| Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans | B |
| Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground | C |
| The emptiness of ages in his face | D |
| And on his back the burden of the world | E |
| Who made him dead to rapture and despair | F |
| A thing that grieves not and that never hopes | G |
| Stolid and stunned a brother to the ox | H |
| Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw | I |
| Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow | J |
| Whose breath blew out the light within this brain | K |
| Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave | L |
| To have dominion over sea and land | M |
| To trace the stars and search the heavens for power | N |
| To feel the passion of Eternity | O |
| Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns | P |
| And marked their ways upon the ancient deep | Q |
| Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf | R |
| There is no shape more terrible than this | S |
| More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed | T |
| More filled with signs and portents for the soul | U |
| More fraught with menace to the universe | V |
| - | |
| What gulfs between him and the seraphim | W |
| Slave of the wheel of labor what to him | W |
| Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades | X |
| What the long reaches of the peaks of song | Y |
| The rift of dawn the reddening of the rose | Z |
| Through this dread shape the suffering ages look | A2 |
| Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop | B2 |
| Through this dread shape humanity betrayed | C2 |
| Plundered profaned and disinherited | C2 |
| Cries protest to the Judges of the World | C2 |
| A protest that is also prophecy | O |
| - | |
| O masters lords and rulers in all lands | D2 |
| Is this the handiwork you give to God | C2 |
| This monstrous thing distorted and soul quenched | C2 |
| How will you ever straighten up this shape | E2 |
| Touch it again with immortality | C2 |
| Give back the upward looking and the light | C2 |
| Rebuild in it the music and the dream | W |
| Make right the immemorial infamies | D2 |
| Perfidious wrongs immedicable woes | D2 |
| - | |
| O masters lords and rulers in all lands | D2 |
| How will the Future reckon with this Man | F2 |
| How answer his brute question in that hour | N |
| When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world | C2 |
| How will it be with kingdoms and with kings | D2 |
| With those who shaped him to the thing he is | D2 |
| When this dumb Terror shall reply to God | C2 |
| After the silence of the centuries | D2 |
Edwin Markham
(3)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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Alejandro B. Pasaol: One of the best poems I have read from the book English ang American Literature during my highschool days in 1964-65.
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