Giant Hours With Poet Preachers | Page 2

order, and thus extend the power of the cross down into the material
ground of our existence. Men are not fully saved until tools are saved,
till industries are saved. They must all be lit with the brother spirit of
Christ the Artisan.
All of this transformation is implied in the Sermon on the Mount. For
that sermon may be taken to be the first draft of the constitution of the
new social order that the Christ has in his heart for men. It was this new
order that he had in mind when he uttered the great invitation, "Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
All the work-worn toilers of the world were to find rest in the new
brotherly order about to be established on the earth. The Master has laid
one great duty upon his followers--to embrother men and to emparadise
the world.
This is a great labor, for it demands that the spirit of the brother Christ
shall sing in all the wheels and sound in all the steps of our industrial
life. It means that the Golden Rule shall become the working principle
in our social order. This is the salvation that Christ came to bring to the
world; this is the glad tidings; this the good news to men!
This is only a glimpse of the great social truth of the Lord that is
beginning to break like a new morning upon the world. And what I
have said in this letter I have tried a thousand times to say in my poems
that have gone out into the world. And this new note I catch in the lines
of the poets everywhere in modern poets, especially in the poets

discussed in the following pages.
Yours in the Fellowship of the great hopes,
[Signature: Edwin Markham]
West New Brighton, N. Y.

FOREWORD
Vachel Lindsay, one of the modern Christian poets, whose writings are
discussed in this book, has expressed the reason for the book itself in
these four lines:
"I wish that I had learned by heart Some lyrics read that day; I knew
not 'twas a giant hour That soon would pass away."
The author of this book makes no assumption that the "Giant Hours"
are in the setting he has given these literary gems, but in the "lyrics"
themselves.

AMERICAN POETS
EDWIN MARKHAM
VACHEL LINDSAY
JOAQUIN MILLER
ALAN SEEGER

EDWIN MARKHAM [Footnote: The poetical selections appearing in
this chapter are used by permission of the publishers, Doubleday, Page
& Co., and are taken from the following works: The Shoes of
Happiness and The Man with the Hoe.]
A STUDY OF HAPPINESS IN POVERTY, IN SERVICE, IN
LOWLINESS; AND A BIT OF "SCRIPT" FOR THE JOURNEY OF
LIFE
Edwin Markham is the David of modern poetry. He is biblical in the
simplicity of his style. He, like the poet of old, tended sheep on "The
Suisün Hills," and of it he speaks:
"Long, long ago I was a shepherd boy, My young heart touched with
wonder and wild joy."
THE SHOES OF HAPPINESS.
None less than William Dean Howells has said of him, "Excepting
always my dear Whitcomb Riley, Edwin Markham is the first of the

Americans." "The greatest poet of the century" is the estimate of Ella
Wheeler Wilcox; and Francis Grierson adds, "Edwin Markham is one
of the greatest poets of the age, and the greatest poet of democracy." Dr.
David G. Downey makes his estimate of the poet, in his book, Modern
Poets and Christian Teaching, a little broader and deeper in the two
phrases: "He is not more poet than prophet," and, "He is the poet of
humanity--of man in relations." And of them all I feel that the latter
estimate is best put, for Edwin Markham is more than "the poet of
democracy"; he is the poet of all humanity, down on the earth where
humanity lives. And that Dr. Downey was right in calling him
"prophet" one needs but to read some lines from "The Man with the
Hoe" in the light of the Russian revolution, and proof is made:
"O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, Is this the handiwork you give
to God, This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched? How will
you ever straighten up this shape?
* * * * *
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings-- When those who shaped
him to the thing he is-- When this dumb Terror shall reply to God,
After the silence of the centuries?"
THE MAN WITH THE HOE.
"How will it be with kingdoms and with kings?" the "Man with the
Hoe" is answering in Russia this star-lit night and sun-illumined day.
Yes, Markham is prophet as well as poet. And