Edwin Markham Poems

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 I LOOKED one night, and there the Semiramis, 
With all her mourning doves about her head, 
Sat rocking on an ancient road of Hell, 
Withered and eyeless, chanting to the moon 
Snatches of song they sang to her of old 
Upon the lighted roofs of Nineveh. 
And then her voice rang out with rattling laugh: 
"The bugles! they are...Read more of this...

 WHEN the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour 
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, 
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down 
To make a man to meet the mortal need. 
She took the tried clay of the common road-- 
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of earth, 
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;...Read more of this...

 ONE night we were together, you and I, 
And had unsown Assyria for a lair, 
Before the walls of Babylon rose in air. 
How languid hills were heaped along the sky, 
And white bones marked the wells of alkali, 
When suddenly down the lion-path a sound . . . 
The wild man-odor . . . then a crouch, a...Read more of this...

 THE low-voiced girls that go 
In gardens of the Lord, 
Like flowers of the field they grow 
In sisterly accord. 

Their whispering feet are white 
Along the leafy ways; 
They go in whirls of light 
Too beautiful for praise. 

And in their band forsooth 
Is one to set me free-- 
The one that touched my youth-- 
The one God...Read more of this...

 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...Read more of this...