The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems (Markham, Pyle, 1900)/The Climb of Life
The Climb of Life
There's a feel of all things flowing,
And no power of Earth can bind them;
There's a sense of all things growing,
And through all their forms a-glowing
Of the shaping souls behind them.
And the break of beauty heightens
With the swiftening of the motion,
And the soul behind it lightens,
As a gleam of splendor whitens
From a running wave of ocean.
See the still hand of the Shaper,
Moving in the dusk of being:
Burns at first a misty taper,
Like the moon in veil of vapor,
When the rack of night is fleeing.
In the stone a dream is sleeping,
Just a tinge of life, a tremor;
In the tree a soul is creeping—
Last, a rush of angels sweeping
With the skies beyond the dreamer.
So the Lord of Life is flinging
Out a splendor that conceals Him:
And the God is softly singing,
And on secret ways is winging,
Till the rush of song reveals Him.