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?

Down all the stretches of Hell to its last gulf There is no shape more terrible than this — More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed — More filled with signs and portents for the soul — More fraught with menace to the universe.

Through this dread shape the suffering ages look; Time's tragedy is in the 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 a prophecy.

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, Is this the handiwork you give to God, This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?

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 crest and crowning of all good, Life's final star, is Brotherhood; For it will bring again to Earth Her long-lost Poesy and Mirth; Will send new light on every face, A kingly power upon the race. And till it come, we men are slaves, And travel downward to the dust of graves.

Come, clear the way, then, clear the way: Blind creeds and kings have had their day. Break the dead branches from the path; Our hope is in the aftermath — Our hope is in heroic men, Star-led to build the world again. To this Event the ages ran: Make way for Brotherhood — make way for Man.

He drew a circle that shut me out — Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in.

It was ages ago in life's first wonder I found you, Virgilia, wild sea-heart; And 'twas ages ago that we went asunder, Ages and worlds apart. Your luminous face and your hair's dark glory, I knew them of old by an ocean-stream, In a far, first world now turned to story, Now faded back to dream.