The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899), The Man With the Hoe (1898)
Context: 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 and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
“… to gaze into the face of another is to gaze into the depth and entirety of his life.”
Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
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John O'Donohue 44
Irish writer, priest and philosopher 1956–2008Related quotes
“I have never seen faces, but because I have looked people in the eye, only their gazes.”
As quoted in "The Red Gaze"' in Expressionism (2004) by Norbert Wolf, p. 92
Undated
Hérodiade.
Hérodiade (1898)
Context: I am alone in my monotonous country,
While all those around me live in the idolatry
Of a mirror reflecting in its depths serene
Herodiade, whose gaze is diamond keen...
O final enchantment! yes, I sense it, I am alone.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 384.