Poetry of Edwin Markham

Poetry of Edwin Markham

He drew a circle that shut me out - Heretic , rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle and took him in!

Markham was raised a Methodist. He came to know Thomas Lake Harris around 1876, and may have learned about Swedenborg from him.

Markham wrote a poem about Swedenborg, and often quoted Swedenborg.

He spoke at Swedenborgian Churches, but never officially joined the church.

In Marguerite Block's History of the New Church, she refers to Markham as representing the "Social Gospel" dimension of the church.  She quotes him as saying this in the Boston Church:

If Swedenborg had never expressed another idea than his immortal saying, "All religion has relation to life, and the life of religion is to do good," he would have given the world enough to inspire a hundred seers.  I never speak his name without emotion.  He lifted me out of a quagmire of theology; he lifted me up to see the stars. [Block, p. 348]

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