How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds and rebellion shake the world?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God
After the silence of the centuries?
ONE OF THE GREAT POEMS OF THE CENTURY.
No other poem published in America in many years has so stirred the emotions of the people, commanded so much attention and created so much comment as “The Man with the Hoe.” It and Kipling’s “Recessional” are regarded as the great poems of the closing years of the century. The critics have hailed “The Man with the Hoe” as a prominent piece of political literature, because of the breadth and depth and vital importance of the theme, and the fervor and noble dignity of its treatment. Yet the poem has been misinterpreted and assailed. It has been said to be an affront to manual labor. The only answer Mr. Markham has thus far made to his critics he dictated to the writer. He also spoke, for the first time for publication, of his mother, and her all-pervading influence on his early life, of his youthful days, and of his own experience with the hoe.
Mr. Markham’s poetry proves that his paramount quality is his deep sympathy with suffering. The most marked thing in his personality is his humanity, which effuses, so to speak, in a spontaneous geniality and unaffected interest in others. He laughs easily and tells a story extremely well.