“The Man with the Hoe” Introduction

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“The Man with the Hoe” Summary

“The Man with the Hoe” Themes

• 

  The Exploitation of the Working Class

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Man with the Hoe”

• Before Line 1, Lines 1-4

       Written after seeing Millet’s World-Famous Painting

       God made man in His own image,

       in the image of God made He him.
   —Genesis.
  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.   

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-10

  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?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 11-16

  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?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 17-21

  Down all the stretch 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 danger to the universe.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 22-26

  What gulfs between him and the seraphim!   
  Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him   
  Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
  What the long reaches of the peaks of song,   
  The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 27-32

  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 Judges of the World,   
  A protest that is also prophecy.

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 33-35

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

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 36-41

  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?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 42-43

  O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
  How will the Future reckon with this Man?   

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 44-49

  How answer his brute question in that hour   
  When whirlwinds of 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?

  

  

  

  

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“The Man with the Hoe” Symbols

• 

  Light and Vision

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“The Man with the Hoe” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Anaphora

  

  

  

  

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• Rhetorical Question

  

  

  

  

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• Personification

  

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Consonance

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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• Apostrophe

  

  

  

  

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“The Man with the Hoe” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Rapture
• Stolid
• Dominion
• Tongued
• Censure
• Portents
• Fraught
• Seraphim
• Dread
• Plundered
• Profaned
• Disinherited
• Protest
• Soul-quenched
• Immortality
• Immemorial infamies
• Perfidious wrongs
• Immedicable woes
• Reckon
• Brute question
• Dumb

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Man with the Hoe”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“The Man with the Hoe” Speaker

“The Man with the Hoe” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “The Man with the Hoe”

More “The Man with the Hoe” Resources

• External Resources

  • Markham in California — More details about Markham's life, including photos and additional poems.

  • Relationships and Influences — Markham's aesthetics may have gone out of style, but his influence lives on. Learn more at Poetry Out Loud.

  • The "World-Famous Painting" — See Jean-François Millet's painting that inspired this poem.

  • Markham's Life Story — At the Poetry Foundation, a biography and overview of Markham's career

  • The American Labor Movement — Learn more about the history of labor in the United States.