A Workman to the Gods

By Edwin Markham 1852–1940 Edwin Markham

Once Phidias stood, with hammer in his hand,

Carving Minerva from the breathing stone,

Tracing with love the winding of a hair,

A single hair upon her head, whereon

A youth of Athens cried, “O Phidias,

Why do you dally on a hidden hair?

When she is lifted to the lofty front

Of the Parthenon, no human eye will see.”

And Phidias thundered on him: “Silence, slave:

Men will not see, but the Immortals will!”

Source: The Shoes of Happiness and Other Poems (1929)

Biography

Once internationally famous as the author of the poem "The Man with the Hoe," Markham was a popular American literary figure during the first half of the twentieth century whose works espoused progressive social and spiritual beliefs. In contrast to the experimentalism and pessimism that generally characterized poetry of this era, Markham's quatrains, sonnets, and heroic verse celebrate peace, love, and socialist utopian reform. . . .

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