Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE GLORY OF TOIL, by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE GLORY OF TOIL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Whether they delve in the buried coal, or plough the upland soil
Last Line: Is guiding the whole creation up from the deeps to him!
Alternate Author Name(s): Dean
Subject(s): God; Labor & Laborers; Work; Workers


WHETHER they delve in the buried coal, or plough the upland soil,
Or man the seas, or measure the suns, hail to the men who toil!
It was stress and strain, in wood and cave, while the primal ages ran,
That broadened the brow, and built the brain, and made of a brute a man;
And better the lot of the sunless mine, the fisher's perilous sea,
Than the slothful ease of him who sleeps in the shade of his bread-fruit tree;
For sloth is death and stress is life in all God's realms that are,
And the joy of the limitless heavens is the whirl of star with star!
Still reigns the ancient order — to sow, and reap, and spin;
But oh, the spur of the doing! and oh, the goals to win
Where each, from the least to the greatest, must bravely bear his part —
Make straight the furrows, or shape the laws, or dare the crowded mart!
And he who lays firm the foundations, though strong right arm may tire,
Is worthy as he who curves the arch and dreams the airy spire;
For both have reared the minster that shrines the sacred fire.

Floods drown the fairest valleys; fields droop in the August blaze;
Yet rain and sun are God's angels that give us the harvest days,
And toil is the world's salvation, though stern may be its ways:
Far from the lair it has led us — far from the gloom of the cave —
Till lo, we are lords of Nature instead of her crouching slave!
And slowly it brings us nearer to the ultimate soul of things:
We are weighing the atoms, and wedding the seas, and cleaving the air with
wings;
And draining the tropic marshes where death had lain in wait,
And piercing the polar solitudes, for all their icy state;
And luring the subtle electric flame to set us free from the clod —
O toiling Brothers, the earth around, we are working together with God!
With God, the infinite Toiler, who dwells with His humblest ones,
And tints the dawn and the lily, and flies with the flying suns,
And forever, through love and service, though days may be drear and dim,
Is guiding the whole creation up from the deeps to Him!





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