The Man with a Hoe

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?

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 marked their ways upon the ancient deep?

Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf

There is no shape more terrible than this--

More tongued with cries against the world's blind greed--

More filled with signs and portents for the soul--

More packed with danger to the universe.

What gulfs between him and the seraphim!

Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him

Are Plato and the swing of the Pleiades?

What the long reaches of the peaks of song,

The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?

Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;

Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;

Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,

Plundered, profaned and disinherited,

Cries protest to the Powers that made the world,

A protest that is also prophecy.

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,

Is this the handiwork you give to God,

This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?

How will you ever straighten up this shape;

Touch it again with immortality;

Give back the upward looking and the light;

Rebuild in it the music and the dream;

Make right the immemorial infamies,

Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,

How will the future reckon with this Man?

How answer his brute question in that hour

When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?

How will it be with kingdoms and with kings--

With those who shaped him to the thing he is--

When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,

After the silence of the centuries?

The poem "The Man with the Hoe," by Edwin Markham, was the poet’s comment on labor after
observing the painting L'homme à la houe, in which a french peasant toils in the fields. The laborer
serves as a symbol of a hard deprived life as mankind toils in the field. The man receives no reward for
his labor nor does he have much time to rest before being back in the fields. For the man life is
mundane and repetitive. The man has been equipped with the gifts of the ability to learn and know
about philosophy and dreams, but they have been stripped away from him. He is a prisoner in the fields
by something corrupt that uses him like an ox. The man, who was created in God’s image, falls short he
believes of what God had expected for mankind. The poet questions if this was what was intended by
God or has man’s own hand led to this man’s burdened life.
It is interesting to note that the painter, Millet, caused his government and the people around him to be
concerned that he was making a Socialist statement about the painting. In the same way, Markham’s
poem was not received well by the Aristocrats.

Edwin Markham, who has been called “the dean of American poets,” received national fame, and later
worldwide fame, when he published “The Man with the Hoe.” It changed his career immediately. The
poem consists of forty-nine lines divided into five stanzas of social commentary that focus on America’s
working class and their sufferings. It is a striking poem of protest against exploited labor.

After viewing French artist Jean-François Millet’s world-famous painting of a peasant leaning on his hoe,
The Man with the Hoe (1862), Markham was inspired to write his poem in 1898. He is reported to have
seen the original painting, which had a profound effect on him, in San Francisco. Markham was at a New
Year’s Eve celebration when he read the poem to an editor of the San Francisco Examiner. Shortly
thereafter, the poem was published in that paper.

Because of its popularity, the poem was translated into many languages and reprinted in magazines,
newspapers, and books numerous times. The poem’s success allowed Markham to spend more time
writing and lecturing. In regard to the reform movements concerning labor struggles of the time, the
poem generated much controversy. The newspapers received many letters regarding “The Man with the
Hoe.” The poem was open to different interpretations. Some readers said that the poem was advocating
socialism: Some were in support of the concept; others were against it. Others said the poem contained
a prophetic message that could incite unessential reforms. Still others considered the poem a medium
for expressing farmers’ and workers’ grievances.

For Markham, Millet’s peasant symbolized the exploited classes worldwide. Markham said that he
viewed it as “a poem of hope. a cry for justice.” In the fourth stanza, Markham addresses the “masters,
lords, and rulers in all lands.” He interrogates them with an implied sense of optimism:

Is this the handiwork you give to God,This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?How will you
ever straighten up this shape,Touch it again with immortality;Give back the upward looking and the
light;Rebuild in it the music and the dream;Make right the immemorial infamies,Perfidious wrongs,
immedicable woes?

Selecting the best way to express his poetic ideas about social and spiritual beliefs, Markham chose
blank verse, for it provided the flexibility he needed. As Markham employed language, he made use of
several poetic devices, including vivid descriptions, extended metaphors, rhetorical questions, literary
allusions, and symbolism.
In the first stanza, the reader is given a vivid description of a laborer who has been crushed by years of
toil, struggles, and injustices, to the extent that one can visualize the negative effects: “Bowed by the
weight of centuries,” “The emptiness of ages in his face,” “on his back the burden of the world.”
Markham asks, “Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?” Some other poets have also shown
interest in the treatment of humankind. Among them is eighteenth century Robert Burns, who also was
a farmer and a poet. In his poem “Man’s Inhumanity to Man,” he writes of the many ills that have
befallen humankind: “Man’s inhumanity to man,/ Makes countless thousands mourn.”

The second stanza of “The Man with the Hoe” opens with an allusion to the Genesis creation story;
Markham refers to humanity as the “Thing the Lord God made and gave/ To have dominion over sea
and land.” Markham suggests that humans have lost their position and are no longer held in high
esteem, as God intended. Human dignity has been taken away. The “Thing” is the antithesis of the man
whom David describes in Psalm 8:4-5: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man
that thou dost care for him?/ Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory
and honor./ Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands. . . .”

Markham continues to focus on some of the negative effects of the “Slaves of the wheel of labor.” He
clearly condemns the exploitation of labor. Such conditions have caused the laborer to have an “aching
stoop” and to become devoid of mind and heart. Markham also challenges “the Judges of the World.” In
the last stanza, he alludes to changes in the future that may come about as a result of protests and
rebellions. Consequently, Markham wants to know how the world will react “When this dumb Terror
shall reply to God,/ After the silence of the centuries?”