Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“ The grand horses thunder and leap on their way
The red foe is yonder, and may prove the master;
Turn out there, bold traffic—turn out there, I say!
For once the loud truckman knows oaths will not matter
And reins in his horses and yields to his fate.
The engines are coming! let pleasure-crowds scatter,
Let street car and truckman and mail waggon wait.
They speed like a comet—they pass in a minute;
The boys follow on like a tail to a kite;
The commonplace street has but traffic now in it—
The great fire engines have swept out of sight. ”

“ And sweet tender mothers, had Fate been less fair,
Are the women who might have abandoned their lives
To the madness that springs from and ends in despair.
As the fire on the hearth which sheds brightness around,
Neglected, may level the walls to the ground.
The world makes grave errors in judging these things.
Great good and great evil are born in one breast:
Love horns us and hoofs us, or gives us our wings,
And the best could be worst, as the worst could be best.
You must thank your own worth for what I grew to be,
For the demon lurked under the angel in me. ”

“ How sorrow ever would be our friend.
IF ’Twixt what thou art, and what thou wouldst be, let
No “If” arise on which to lay the blame.
Man makes a mountain of that puny word,
But, like a blade of grass before the scythe,
It falls and withers when a human will,
Stirred by creative force, sweeps toward its aim.
Thou wilt be what thou couldst be. Circumstance
Is but the toy of genius. When a soul
Burns with a god-like purpose to achieve,
All obstacles between it and its goal
Must vanish as the dew before the sun. ”

“ One of earth’s dissension-breeders, one of Hate’s unreasoning tools,
In the annals of the ages, when the world’s hot anger cools,
He who sought for Crime’s distinction shall be known as Chief of Fools.
In the annals of the ages, he who had no thought of fame
(Keeping on the path of duty, caring not for praise or blame) ,
Close beside the deathless Lincoln, writ in light, will shine his name.
Youth proclaimed him as a hero; time, a statesman; love, a man;
Death has crowned him as a martyr,—so from goal to goal he ran,
Knowing all the sum of glory that a human life may span. ”

“ I cried, “doth Pleasure find her way.”
Seen from the distant borderland of youth,
Fame smiles upon us from her sun-kissed height,
But frowns in shadows when we reach the goal.
Then were mine eyes fixed on that glittering goal,
Dear to all sense—sunk souls beneath the skies.
Gold tempts the artist from the lofty height,
Gold lures the maiden from the arms of Love,
Gold buys the fresh, ingenuous heart of youth,
“And gold,” I said, “will show me Pleasure’s way.” ”

“ Love thyself last. Look far and find the stranger
Who staggers ’neath his sin and his despair;
Go, lend a hand, and lead him out of danger,
To heights where he may see the world is fair.
Love thyself last. The vastnesses above thee
Are filled with Spirit-Forces; strong and pure
And fervently these faithful friends shall love thee
Keep thou thy watch o’er others and endure.
Love thyself last, and oh! such joy shall thrill thee
As never yet to selfish souls was given;
Whate’er thy lot, a perfect peace will fill thee,
And earth shall seem the ante-room of Heaven. ”

“ The grandest lives are ofttimes desolate;
Let me be loved, and let who will be great.
Love is enough.
Love is enough. Why should we ask for more?
What greater gift have gods vouchsafed to men?
What better boon of all their precious store
Than our fond hearts that love and love again?
Old love may die; new love is just as sweet;
And life is fair and all the world complete:
Love is enough!
LIFE IS A PRIVILEGE Life is a privilege. ”

“ Youth’s lovely lost Atlantis, so mourned for and so dear,
Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near.
When gloomy, gray Decembers are roused to Christmas mirth,
The dullest life remembers there once was joy on earth,
And draws from youth’s recesses
Some memory it possesses,
And, gazing through the lens of time, exaggerates its worth,
When gloomy, gray December is roused to Christmas mirth.
When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wis
Each heart recalls some folly that lit the world with bliss. ”

“ For knowledge of infinite things
This is the kingdom where Thought
Can conquer the prowess of kings
Wait for no heavenly life,
Seek for no temple alone;
Here, in the midst of the strife,
Know what the sages have known.
See what the Perfect Ones saw—
God in the depth of each soul,
God as the light and the law,
God as beginning and goal.
Earth is one chamber of Heaven,
Death is no grander than birth.
Joy in the life that was given,
Strive for perfection on earth ”

“ I’m sorry for the souls who build their own fame’s funeral pyre,
Derided by the scornful throng like ice deriding fire.
I’m sorry for the conquering ones who know not sin’s defeat,
But daily tread down fierce desire ’neath scorched and bleeding feet.
I’m sorry for the anguished hearts that break with passion’s strain,
But I’m sorrier for the poor starved souls that never knew love’s pain,
Who hunger on through barren years not tasting joys they crave,
For sadder far is such a lot than weeping o’er a grave. ”

“ LIFE’S HARMONIES Let no man pray that he know not sorrow,
Let no soul ask to be free from pain,
For the gall of to-day is the sweet of to-morrow,
And the moment’s loss is the lifetime’s gain.
Through want of a thing does its worth redouble,
Through hunger’s pangs does the feast content,
And only the heart that has harboured trouble
Can fully rejoice when joy is sent. ”

“ Let no man labour as she goes by
On her last appearance to mortal eye:
With heads uncovered let all men wait
For the Queen to pass, in her regal state.
Army and Navy shall lead the way
For that wonderful coach of the Queen’s to-day.
Kings and Princes and Lords of the land
Shall ride behind her, a humble band;
And over the city and over the world
Shall the Flags of all Nations be half-mast-furled,
For the silent lady of royal birth
Who is riding away from the Courts of earth,
Riding away from the world’s unrest
To a mystical goal, on a secret quest. ”

“ The rights of many—not the worth of one;
The coming issues—not the battle done;
The awful opulence, and awful need;
The rise of brotherhood—the fall of greed,
The soul of man replete with God’s own force,
The call “to heights,” and not the cry “to horse,”—
Are there not better themes in this great age
For pen of poet, or for voice of sage
Than those old tales of killing? Song is dumb
Only that greater song in time may come.
When comes the bard, he whom the world waits for,
He will not sing of War. ”

“ THE PESSIMIST The pessimistic locust, last to leaf,
Though all the world is glad, still talks of grief.
AN INSPIRATION However the battle is ended,
Though proudly the victor comes
With fluttering flags and prancing nags
And echoing roll of drums,
Still truth proclaims this motto
In letters of living light,—
No question is ever settled
Until it is settled right.
Though the heel of the strong oppressor
May grind the weak in the dust;
And the voices of fame with one acclaim
May call him great and just,
Let those who applaud take warning. ”

“ Who travels alone without lover or friend
But hurries from nothing, to naught at the end.
Though great be his winnings and high be his goal,
He is bankrupt in wisdom and beggared in soul.
Life’s one gift of value to him is denied
Who travels alone without love at his side. ”

“ Wretched toilers in life’s autumn, weary young ones in life’s May time—
They are crying, they are calling for their share of work and pleasure;
You are heaping high your coffers while you give them scanty measure,—
You have stolen God’s wide acres, just to glut your swollen purses—
Oh! restore them to His children ere their pleading turns to curses.
THE WORLD GROWS BETTER Oh! the earth is full of sinning
And of trouble and of woe,
But the devil makes an inning
Every time we say it’s so. ”

“ As you pass along the way;
For the pleasures of the many
May be ofttimes traced to one,
As the hand that plants an acorn
Shelters armies from the sun.
WE TWO We two make home of any place we go;
We two find joy in any kind of weather;
Or if the earth is clothed in bloom or snow,
If summer days invite, or bleak winds blow,
What matters it if we two are together?
We two, we two, we make our world, our weather.
We two make banquets of the plainest fare;
In every cup we find the thrill of pleasure ”

“ To light departing feet, my shadowed way
You brighten with your faith. Faith makes the man
Alas, that my poor foolish age outran
Its early trust in God! The death of art
And progress follows, when the world’s hard heart
Casts out religion. ’Tis the human brain
Men worship now, and heaven, to them, means—gain.
The New Century
Faith is not dead, tho’ priest and creed may pass,
For thought has leavened the whole unthinking mass,
And man looks now to find the God within. ”

“ Whom thou disdained to seek for glory’s goal.
Two blending paths beneath God’s arching skies
Lead straight to Pleasure. Ah! blind heart of youth,
Not up fame’s height, not toward the base god’s goal,
Doth Pleasure make her way, but ’neath calm skies
Where Duty walks with Love in endless youth. ”

“ Yet the sweet scent of sympathy is there.
Pale sorrow leads us closer to our kind,
And in the serious hours of life we find
Depths in the souls of men which lend new worth
And majesty to this brief span of earth.
Life is a privilege. ”

“ O lovely Peace! as thou art fair be wise.
Demand great men, and great men shall arise
To do thy bidding. Even as warriors come,
Swift at the call of bugle and of drum,
So at the voice of Peace, imperative
As bugle’s call, shall heroes spring to live
For country and for thee. In every land,
In every age, men are what times demand.
Demand the best, O Peace, and teach thy sons
They need not rush in front of death-charged guns
With murder in their hearts to prove their worth. ”

“ And dare you doubt the One who has done all?
“So much is wrong, there is such pain—such sinning.”
Yet look again—behold how much is right!
And He who formed the world from its beginning
Knows how to guide it upward to the light.
Your task, O man, is not to carp and cavil
At God’s achievements, but with purpose strong
To cling to good, and turn away from evil.
That is the way to help the world along. ”

“ Some other soul will be spurred on, conceiving
New strength and hope, in its own power believing,
Because thou didst not fail.
Not thine alone the glory, nor the sorrow,
If thou dost miss the goal;
Undreamed of lives in many a far to-morrow
From thee their weakness or their force shall borrow—
On, on, ambitious soul.
UNCONTROLLED The mighty forces of mysterious space
Are one by one subdued by lordly man. ”

“ And bids the tyrant Circumstance
Uncrown and fill a servant’s place.
The human Will, that force unseen,
The offspring of a deathless Soul,
Can hew the way to any goal,
Though walls of granite intervene. ”

“ Why prate of our defects, of where we fail,
When just the story of our worth would need
Eternity for telling, and our best
Development comes ever through your praise,
As through our praise you reach your highest self? ”

“ One that drifted from its moorings in the anchorage of hate.
On the deck our noble Pilot, in the glory of his prime,
Lies in woe-impelling silence, dead before his hour or time,
Victim of a mind self-centred in a Godless fool of crime. ”

“ It behooves you, men and women, it behooves you to be heeding,
For there lurks a note of menace underneath their plaintive pleading.
Let the land usurpers listen, let the greedy-hearted ponder,
On the meaning of the murmur, rising here and swelling yonder,
Swelling louder, waxing stronger, like a storm-fed stream that courses
Through the valleys, down abysses, growing, gaining with new forces. ”

“ I hear the guns—I see the greed and lust.
The death throes of a giant evil fill
The air with riot and confusion. Ill
Ofttimes makes fallow ground for Good; and Wrong
Builds Right’s foundation, when it grows too strong. ”

“ Made him ruler of a nation, but his own intrinsic worth.
Fools may govern over kingdoms—not republics of the earth.
He has raised the lovers’ standard by his loyalty and faith,
He has shown how virile manhood may keep free from scandal’s breath. ”

“ Or zodiacal sign which can control
The God in us! If we bring that to bear
Upon events, we mould them to our wish;
’Tis when the infinite ’neath the finite gropes
That men are governed by their horoscopes. ”

“ The regiment went marching to the fight!
When the regiment came back all the guns and swords were black
And the uniforms had faded out to gray,
And the faces of the men who marched through that street again
Seemed like faces of the dead who lose their way.
For the dead who lose their way cannot look more wan and gray.
Oh the sorrow and the pity of the sight,
Oh the weary lagging feet out of step with drums that beat,
As the regiment comes marching from the fight.
WOMAN TO MAN
Woman is man’s enemy, rival, and competitor.—John j. ”