N.B.—The only volumes of my poems issued
with my approval in the British Empire are
published by Messrs. Gay & Hancock.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

   A wild Pink nestled in a garden bed,
A rich Carnation flourished high above her,
   One day he chanced to see her pretty head
And leaned and looked again, and grew to love her.

   The Moss (her humble mother) saw with fear
The ardent glances of the princely stranger;
   With many an anxious thought and dewy tear
She sought to hide her darling from this danger.

   The gardener-guardian of this noble bud
A cruel trellis interposed between them.
   No common Pink should mate with royal blood,
He said, and sought in every way to wean them.

   The fainting Pink wept as the bee drew near,
Droning his prayers, and begged him to confess her.
   Her weary mother, over-taxed by fear,
Slept, while the priest leaned low to shrive and bless her.

   But lo! ere long the tale went creeping out,
The rich Carnation and the Pink were married!
   The cunning bee had brought the thing about
While Mamma Moss in Slumber’s arms had tarried.

   And proud descendants of that loving pair,
The offspring of that true and ardent passion,
   Are famous for their beauty everywhere,
And leaders in the floral world of fashion.

Whatever your work and whatever its worth,
   No matter how strong or clever,
Some one will sneer if you pause to hear,
   And scoff at your best endeavour.
For the target art has a broad expanse,
   And wherever you chance to hit it,
Though close be your aim to the bull’s-eye fame,
   There are those who will never admit it.

Though the house applauds while the artist plays,
   And a smiling world adores him,
Somebody is there with an ennuied air
   To say that the acting bores him.
For the tower of art has a lofty spire,
   With many a stair and landing,
And those who climb seem small oft-time
   To one at the bottom standing.

I know two women, and one is chaste
And cold as the snows on a winter waste,
Stainless ever in act and thought
(As a man, born dumb, in speech errs not).
But she has malice toward her kind,
A cruel tongue and a jealous mind.
Void of pity and full of greed,
She judges the world by her narrow creed;
A brewer of quarrels, a breeder of hate,
Yet she holds the key to “Society’s” Gate.

Whatever is a cruel wrong,
   Whatever is unjust,
The honest years that speed along
   Will trample in the dust.
In restless youth I railed at fate
   With all my puny might,
But now I know if I but wait
   It all will come out right.

Though Vice may don the judge’s gown
   And play the censor’s part,
And Fact be cowed by Falsehood’s frown
   And Nature ruled by art;
Though Labour toils through blinding tears
   And idle Wealth is might,
I know the honest, earnest years
   Will bring it all out right.

There was a flame, oh! such a tiny flame—
   One fleeting hour had spanned its birth and death,
   But for a silly child with playful breath
Who fanned it into fury.  It became
A mighty conflagration.  Ah, the cost!
House, home, and thoughtless child alike were lost.

Lady beware.  Fan not the harmless glow
   Of admiration into ardent love,
   Lean not with red curled smiling lips above
The flickering spark of sinless flame, and blow,
Lest in the sudden waking of desire
Thou, like the child, shalt perish in the fire.

About a holy shrine or sacred place,
   Where many hearts have bowed in earnest prayer,
The loveliest spirits congregate from space,
   And bring their sweet, uplifting influence there.

If in your chamber you pray oft and well,
   Soon will these angel-messengers arrive
And make their home with you, and where they dwell
   All worthy toil and purposes shall thrive.

I know a humble, plainly furnished room,
   So thronged with presences serene and bright,
The heaviest heart therein forgets its gloom
   As in some gorgeous temple filled with light.

Those heavenly spirits, beauteous and divine,
   Live only in an atmosphere of prayer;
Make for yourself a sacred, fervent shrine,
   And you will find them swiftly flocking there.

She gave her soul and body for a carriage,
   And livened lackey with a vacant grin,
And all the rest—house, lands—and called it marriage:
   The bargain made, a husband was thrown in.

And now, despite her luxury, she’s faded,
   Gone is the bloom that was so fresh and bright;
She has the dark-rimmed eye, the countenance jaded,
   Of one who watches with the sick at night.

Ah, heaven, she does! her sick heart, sick and dying,
   Beyond the aid of human skill to save,
In that cold room her breast is hourly lying,
   And her grim thoughts crowd near to dig its grave.

Ah, lady! it is hardly what you thought it,
   This life of luxury and social power;
You gave yourself as principal, and bought it,
   But God extracts the interest hour by hour.

   I am coming, coming to thee,
   My strong-armed lover, the Sea!
On thy great broad breast I will lie and rest,
   And thou shalt talk to me.

   I have come to thee, all unsought,
   I have stolen an hour from thought,
And peace and power thou canst give in that hour,
   Which thy rival Earth gives not.

   Alone here, under the sky,
   And the whole world drifting by!
Thy breast of brine thrills close to mine,
   While the cloudless sun sails high.

   I fly, but thou givest chase—
   Thy kisses are on my face!
Be bold and free as thou wilt, O Sea,
   There is life in thy close embrace.

   And what is the Earth to me!
   I have left it all, O Sea!
With its dust and soil and strife and toil,
   For one glad hour with thee.

The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun
Will sweep on its course till the cycle is run.
And when into chaos the systems are hurled,
Again shall the Builder reshape a new world.

Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal;
Move on, for the orbit is fixed for your soul.
And though it may lead into darkness of night,
The torch of the Builder shall give it new light.

You were, and you will be: know this while you are.
Your spirit has travelled both long and afar.
It came from the Source, to the Source it returns;
The spark that was lighted, eternally burns.

From body to body your spirit speeds on;
It seeks a new form when the old one is gone;
And the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought
On the loom of the mind, with the fibre of thought.

As dew is drawn upward, in rain to descend,
Your thoughts drift away and in destiny blend.
You cannot escape them; or petty, or great,
Or evil, or noble, they fashion your fate.

Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow,
Your life will reflect all the thoughts of your now.
The law is unerring; no blood can atone;
The structure you rear you must live in alone.

From cycle to cycle, through time and through space,
Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace.
And all that you ask for, and all you desire,
Must come at your bidding, as flames out of fire.

You are your own devil, you are your own God,
You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod,
And no one can save you from error or sin,
Until you shall hark to the Spirit within.

A soul immortal, Time, God everywhere,
Without, within—how can a heart despair,
Or talk of failure, obstacles, and doubt?
(What proofs of God?  The little seeds that sprout,
Life, and the solar system, and their laws.
Nature?  Ah, yes; but what was Nature’s cause?)

All mighty words are short: God, life, and death,
War, peace, and truth, are uttered in a breath.
And briefly said are love, and will, and time;
Yet in them lies a majesty sublime.

Love is the vast constructive power of space;
Time is the hour which calls it into place;
Will is the means of using time and love,
And bringing forth the heart’s desires thereof.

Go, charge thyself with love; be infinite
And opulent with thy large use of it:
’Tis from free sowing that full harvest springs;
Love God and life and all created things.

Learn time’s great value; to this mandate bow,
The hour of opportunity is Now,
And from thy will, as from a well-strung bow,
Let the swift arrows of thy wishes go.
Though sent into the distance and the dark,
The dawn shall prove thy arrows hit the mark.

On great cathedral window I have seen
A summer sunset swoon and sink away,
Lost in the splendours of immortal art.
Angels and saints and all the heavenly hosts,
With smiles undimmed by half a thousand years,
From wall and niche have met my lifted gaze.
Sculpture and carving and illumined page,
And the fair, lofty dreams of architects,
That speak of beauty to the centuries—
All these have fed me with divine repasts.
Yet in my mouth is left a bitter taste,
The taste of blood that stained that age of art.

God, what an age!  How was it that You let
Colossal genius and colossal crime
Walk for a hundred years across the earth,
Like giant twins?  How was it then that men,
Conceiving such vast beauty for the world,
And such large hopes of heaven, could entertain
Such hellish projects for their fellow-men?
How could the hand that, with consummate skill
And loving patience, limned the luminous page,
Drop pen and brush, and seize the branding-rod,
To scourge a brother for his differing faith?

I want more lives in which to love
   This world so full of beauty,
I want more days to use the ways
   I know of doing duty;
I ask no greater joy than this
   (So much I am life’s lover),
When I reach age to turn the page
   And read the story over.
   (O love, stay near!)

O rapturous promise of the Spring!
   O June fulfilling after!
If Autumns sigh, when Summers die,
   ’Tis drowned in Winter’s laughter.
O maiden dawns, O wifely noons,
   O siren sweet, sweet nights,
I’d want no heaven could earth be given
   Again with its delights
   (If love stayed near).

There are such royal souls to know,
   There is so much to learn,
While secrets rest in Nature’s breast
   And unnamed stars still burn.
God toiled six days to make this earth,
   I think the good folks say—
Six lives we need to give full meed
   Of praise—one for each day
   (If love stay near).

But oh! if love fled far away,
   Or veiled his face from me,
One life too much, why then were such
   A life as this would be.
With sullen May and blighted June,
   Blurred dawn and haggard night,
This dear old world in space were hurled
   If love lent not his light.
   (O love, stay near!)

The first flower of the spring is not so fair
Or bright as one the ripe midsummer brings.
The first faint note the forest warbler sings
Is not as rich with feeling, or so rare
As when, full master of his art, the air
Drowns in the liquid sea of song he flings
Like silver spray from beak, and breast, and wings.
The artist’s earliest effort, wrought with care,
The bard’s first ballad, written in his tears,
Set by his later toil, seems poor and tame,
And into nothing dwindles at the test.
So with the passions of maturer years.
Let those who will demand the first fond flame,
Give me the heart’s last love, for that is best.

This game of life is a dangerous play,
Each human soul must watch alway,
   From the first to the very last.
I care not however strong and pure—
Let no man say he is perfectly sure
   The dangerous reefs are past.

For many a rock may lurk near by,
That never is seen when the tide is high—
   Let no man dare to boast,
When the hand is full of trumps—beware,
For that is the time when thought and care
   And nerve are needed most.

As the oldest jockey knows to his cost,
Full many a well-run race is lost
   A brief half length from the wire.
And many a soul that has fought with sin,
And gained each battle, at last gives in
   To sudden, fierce desire.

A watchful eye and a strong, true hand
Will carry us under the Judge’s stand,
   If prayer, too, does its part;
And little by little the struggling soul
Will grow and strengthen and gain control
   Over the passionate heart.

Ho! sportsman Time, whose chargers fleet
   The moments, madly driven,
Beat in the dust beneath their feet
   Sweet hopes that years have given;
Turn, turn aside those reckless steeds,
   Oh! do not urge them my way;
There’s nothing that Time wants or needs
   In this contented by-way.

You have down-trodden, in your race,
   So much that proves your power,
Why not avoid my humble place?
   Why rob me of my dower?
With your vast cellars, cavern deep,
   Packed tier on tier with treasures,
You would not miss them should I keep
   My little store of pleasures.

Although to just and generous deeds
   Your heart is not a stranger,
I have the feeling that one needs
   To guard his wealth from danger.
And though a most heroic light
   Oft on your pathway lingers,
I’d hide my treasures, if I might,
   From contact with your fingers.

You are the loyal friend of Truth,
   Go seek her, make her stronger,
And leave the remnant of my youth
   To me a little longer.
There’s work enough for you before
   Eternity shall wed you:
Why stoop to steal my simple store?
   Why make me shun and dread you?

Regret with streaming eyes doth seem alway
A maiden widowed on her wedding day.

While dark Remorse, with eyes too sad for tears,
A crushed, desponding Magdalene appears.

One, with a hungering heart unsatisfied,
Mourns for imagined joys that were denied.

The other, pierced by recollected sin,
Broods o’er the scars of pleasures that have been.

A truth that has long lain buried
   At Superstition’s door,
I see, in the dawn uprising
   In all its strength once more.

Hidden away in the darkness,
   By Ignorance crucified,
Crushed under stones of dogmas—
   Yet lo! it has not died.

It stands in the light transfigured,
   It speaks from the heights above,
“Each soul is its own redeemer;
   There is no law but Love.”

And the spirits of men are gladdened
   As they welcome this Truth re-born
With its feet on the grave of Error
   And its eyes to the Easter Morn.

Whatever a man may think or feel
   He can tell to the world and it hears aright;
But it bids the woman conceal, conceal,
   And woe to the thoughts that at last ignite.
She may serve up gossip or dwell on fashion,
   Or play the critic with speech unkind,
But alas for the woman who speaks with passion!
   For the world is blind—for the world is blind.

It is woman who sits with her starved desire,
   And drinks to sorrow in cups of tears;
She reads by the light of her soul on fire
   The secrets of love through lonely years:
But out of all she has felt or heard
   Or read by the glow of her soul’s white flame,
If she dare but utter aloud one word—
   How the world cries shame!—how the world cries shame!

I left the farm when mother died and changed my place of dwelling
   To daughter Susie’s stylish house right on the city street:
And there was them before I came that sort of scared me, telling
   How I would find the town folks’ ways so difficult to meet;
They said I’d have no comfort in the rustling, fixed-up throng,
   And I’d have to wear stiff collars every week-day, right along.

The house is full of calendars from attic to the cellar,
   They’re painted in all colours and are fancy like to see,
But in this one particular I’m not a modern feller,
   And the yellow-coloured almanac is good enough for me.
I’m used to it, I’ve seen it round from boyhood to old age,
   And I rather like the jokin’ at the bottom of the page.

I like the way its “S” stood out to show the week’s beginning,
   (In these new-fangled calendars the days seem sort of mixed),
And the man upon the cover, though he wa’n’t exactly winnin’,
   With lungs and liver all exposed, still showed how we are fixed;
And the letters and credentials that was writ to Mr. Ayer
   I’ve often on a rainy day found readin’ pretty fair.

Somebody’s baby was buried to-day—
   The empty white hearse from the grave rumbled back,
And the morning somehow seemed less smiling and gay
As I paused on the walk while it crossed on its way,
   And a shadow seemed drawn o’er the sun’s golden tract.

Somebody’s baby was laid out to rest,
   White as a snowdrop, and fair to behold,
And the soft little hands were crossed over the breast,
And those hands and the lips and the eyelids were pressed
   With kisses as hot as the eyelids were cold.

Somebody saw it go out of her sight,
   Under the coffin lid—out through the door;
Somebody finds only darkness and blight
All through the glory of summer-sun light;
   Somebody’s baby will waken no more.

I know not her name, but her sorrow I know;
   While I paused on the crossing I lived it once more,
And back to my heart surged that river of woe
That but in the breast of a mother can flow;
   For the little white hearse has been, too, at my door.

I tread the paths of earlier times
Where all my steps were set to rhymes.

I gaze on scenes I used to see
When dreaming of a vague To be.

I walk in ways made bright of old
By hopes youth-limned in hues of gold.

But lo! those hopes of future bliss
Seem dull beside the joy that is.

My noonday skies are far more bright
Than those dreamed of in morning’s light,

And life gives me more joys to hold
Than all it promised me of old.

As we gaze up life’s slope, as we gaze
   In the morn, ere the dewdrops are dry,
What splendour hangs over the ways,
   What glory gleams there in the sky,
   What pleasures seem waiting us, high
On the peak of that beauteous slope,
What rainbow-hued colours of hope,
      As we gaze!

As we climb up the hill, as we climb,
   Our hearts, our illusions, are rent:
For Fate, who is spouse of old Time,
   Is jealous of youth and content.
   With brows that are brooding and bent
She shadows our sunlight of gold,
And the way grows lonely and cold
      As we climb.

As we stand on the heights of success,
   Lo! success seems as sad as defeat!
Through the lives we may succour and bless
   Alone may its litter turn sweet!
   And the world lying there at our feet,
With its cavilling praise and its sneer,
We must pity, condone, but not hear,
      Where we stand.

As we live on those heights, we must live
   With the courage and pride of a god;
For the world, it has nothing to give
   But the scourge of the lash and the rod.
   Our thoughts must be noble and broad,
Our purpose must challenge men’s gaze,
While we seek not their blame or their praise
      As we live.

So, thou hast the art, good dame, thou swearest,
   To keep Time’s perishing touch at bay
From the roseate splendour of the cheek so tender,
   And the silver threads from the gold away.
And the tell-tale years that have hurried by us
   Shall tip-toe back, and, with kind good-will,
They shall take the traces from off our faces,
   If we will trust to thy magic skill.

Thou speakest fairly; but if I listen
   And buy thy secret, and prove its truth,
Hast thou the potion and magic lotion
   To give me also the heart of youth?
With the cheek of rose and the eye of beauty,
   And the lustrous looks of life’s lost prime,
Wilt thou bring thronging each hope and longing
   That made the glory of that dead Time?

If Time’s foot-print from my brow is driven,
   Canst thou, too, take with thy subtle powers
The burden of thinking, and let me go drinking
   The careless pleasures of youth’s bright hours?
If silver threads from my tresses vanish,
   If a glow once more in my pale cheek gleams,
Wilt thou slay duty and give back the beauty
   Of days untroubled by aught but dreams?

When the soft fair arms of the siren Summer
   Encircle the earth in their languorous fold,
Will vast, deep oceans of sweet emotions
   Surge through my veins as they surged of old?
Canst thou bring back from a day long-vanished
   The leaping pulse and the boundless aim?
I will pay thee double, for all thy trouble,
   If thou wilt restore all these, good dame.

While forced to dwell apart from thy dear face,
   Love, robed like sorrow, led me by the hand
   And taught my doubting heart to understand
That which has puzzled all the human race.
Full many a sage has questioned where in space
   Those counter worlds were? where the mystic strand
   That separates them?  I have found each land,
And Hell is vast, and Heaven a narrow space.

In the small compass of thy clasping arms,
   In reach and sight of thy dear lips and eyes,
   There, there for me the joy of Heaven lies.
Outside, lo! chaos, terrors’ wild alarms,
And all the desolation fierce and fell
Of void and aching nothingness, makes Hell.

As yon great Sun in his supreme condition
   Absorbs small worlds and makes them all his own,
So does my love absorb each vain ambition,
   Each outside purpose which my life has known.
Stars cannot shine so near that vast orb’d splendour;
   They are content to feed his flames of fire:
And so my heart is satisfied to render
   Its strength, its all, to meet thy strong desire.

As in a forest when dead leaves are falling
   From all save some perennial green tree,
So one by one I find all pleasures palling
   That are not linked with or enjoyed by thee.
And all the homage that the world may proffer,
   I take as perfumed oils or incense sweet,
And think of it as one thing more to offer,
   And sacrifice to Love, at thy dear feet.

Like some swift-rushing and sea-seeking river,
   Which gathers force the farther on it goes,
So does the current of my love forever
   Find added strength and beauty as it flows.
The more I give, the more remains for giving,
   The more receive, the more remains to win.
Ah! only in eternities of living
   Will life be long enough to love thee in.

There is no thing we cannot overcome
   Say not thy evil instinct is inherited,
Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn,
   And calls down punishment that is not merited.

Back of thy parents and grandparents lies
   The Great Eternal Will.  That, too, is thine
   Inheritance; strong, beautiful, divine,
Sure lever of success for one who tries.

Pry up thy faults with this great lever, Will.
   However deeply bedded in propensity,
However firmly set, I tell thee firmer yet
   Is that vast power that comes from Truth’s immensity.

Thou art a part of that strange world, I say.
   Its forces lie within thee, stronger far
   Than all thy mortal sins and frailties are,
Believe thyself divine, and watch, and pray.

Earth has no claim the soul can not contest.
   Know thyself part of that Eternal Source,
   And naught can stand before thy spirit’s force.
The soul’s divine inheritance is best.

On the river of life, as I float along,
   I see with the spirit’s sight
That many a nauseous weed of wrong
   Has root in a seed of right.
For evil is good that has gone astray,
   And sorrow is only blindness,
And the world is always under the sway
   Of a changeless law of kindness.

The commonest error a truth can make
   Is shouting its sweet voice hoarse,
And sin is only the soul’s mistake
   In misdirecting its force.
And love, the fairest of all fair things
   That ever to man descended,
Grows rank with nettles and poisonous things
   Unless it is watched and tended.

So vast the tide of love within me surging,
   It overflows like some stupendous sea,
   The confines of the Present and To-be;
And ’gainst the Past’s high wall I feel it urging,
   As it would cry, “Thou, too, shalt yield to me!”

All other loves my supreme love embodies;
   I would be she on whose soft bosom nursed
   Thy clinging infant lips to quench their thirst;
She who trod close to hidden worlds where God is,
   That she might have, and hold, and see thee first.

I would be she who stirred the vague, fond fancies
   Of thy still childish heart; who through bright days
   Went sporting with thee in the old-time plays,
And caught the sunlight of thy boyish glances
   In half-forgotten and long-buried Mays.

For I would share the burden of thy errors,
   So when the sun of our brief life had set,
   If thou didst walk in darkness and regret,
E’en in that shadowy world of nameless terrors,
   My soul and thine should be companions yet.

And I would cross with thee those troubled oceans
   Of dark remorse whose waters are despair:
   All things my jealous, reckless love would dare,
So that thou mightst not recollect emotions
   In which it did not have a part and share.

There is no limit to my love’s full measure,
   It’s spirit-gold is shaped by earth’s alloy;
   I would be friend and mother, mate and toy,
I’d have thee look to me for every pleasure,
   And in me find all memories of joy.

Yet though I love thee in such selfish fashion,
   I would wait on thee, sitting at thy feet,
   And serving thee, if thou didst deem it meet.
And couldst thou give me one fond hour of passion,
   I’d take that hour and call my life complete.

With ever some wrong to be righting,
   With self ever seeking for place,
The world has been striving and fighting
   Since man was evolved out of space.
Bold history into dark regions
   His torchlight has fearlessly cast,
He shows us tribes warring in legions,
   In jungles of ages long passed.

Religion, forgetting her station,
   Forgetting her birthright from God,
Set nation to warring with nation
   And scattered dissension abroad.
Dear creeds have made men kill each other,
   Fair faith has bred hate and despair,
And brother has battled with brother
   Because of a difference in prayer.

The brute in humanity dwindles
   And lessens as time speeds along,
And the spark of Divinity kindles
   And blazes up brightly and strong.
The seer can behold in the distance
   The race that shall people the world—
Strong men of a godlike existence
   Unarmed, and with war banners furled.

No longer the bloodthirsty savage
   Man’s vast spirit strength shall unfold;
And tales of red warfare and ravage
   Shall seem like ghost stories of old.
For the booming of guns and the rattle
   Of carnage and conflict shall cease,
And the bugle-call, leading to battle,
   Shall change to a pæan of peace.