Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“ Come forth, O God! though great Thy thought and good,
In shaping woman for true Motherhood,
Lord, speak again; she has not understood.
The centuries pass: the cycles roll along—
The earth is peopled with a mighty throng,
Yet men are fighting and the world goes wrong.
Lord, speak again, ere yet it be too late,
Unloved, unwanted souls come through earth’s gate:
The unborn child is given a dower of hate.
Thy world progresses in all ways save one. ”

“ That made me cry to the grey sky o’er me:
‘Oh, I know this life is a goodly thing!’
I have given sweet years to a thankless duty
While cold and starving, though clothed and fed,
For a young heart’s hunger for joy and beauty
Is harder to bear than the need of bread.
I have watched the wane of a sodden season,
Which let hope wither, and made care thrive,
And through it all, without earthly reason,
I have thrilled with the glory of being alive.
p. 119And now I stand by the great sea’s splendour,
Where love and beauty feed heart and eye. ”

“ And shame to him who does not take his stand.
This is the weightiest moment of all time,
And on the issues of the present hour
A nation’s honour and a country’s peace,
A People’s future, ay, a World’s, depends.
Until the vital questions of the day
Are solved and settled, and the spendthrift thieves
Who rob the coffers of the saving poor
Are led from fashion’s feasts to prison fare,
And taught the saving grace of honest work—
Till Labour claims the privilege of toil
And toil the proceeds of its labour shares—
Let no man sleep, let no man dare to sleep! ”

“ Relax, and let the world go by unheard.
And seal your lips with some all-sacred word.
Breathe ‘God,’ in any tongue—it means the same;
LOVE ABSOLUTE: Think, feel, absorb the thought;
Shut out all else; until a subtle flame
(A spark from God’s creative centre caught)
Shall permeate your being, and shall glow,
Increasing in its splendour, till, YOU KNOW.
p. 162Not in a moment, or an hour, or day
The knowledge comes; the power is far too great,
To win in any desultory way.
No soul is worthy till it learns to wait. ”

“ We will all look back and say:
‘On life’s long mile there was nothing worth while
But the good we did by the way.’
p. 106NEW YEAR’S DAY When with clanging and with ringing
Comes the year’s initial day,
I can feel the rhythmic swinging
Of the world upon its way;
And though Right still wears a fetter,
And though Justice still is blind,
Time’s beyond is always better
Than the paths he leaves behind.
In our eons of existence,
As we circle through the night,
We annihilate the distance
’Twixt the darkness and the light. ”

“ The strident whistle and the clanging bell,
The noise of gongs, the rush of motored things
Are but the prophet voices which foretell
A time when thought may use unfettered wings.
Too long the drudgery of earth has been
A barrier ’twixt man and his own mind.
Remove the stone, and lo! the Christ within;
For He is there, and who so seeks shall find.
The Great Inventor is the Modern Priest.
He paves the pathway to a higher goal.
Once from the grind of endless toil released
Man will explore the kingdom of his soul. ”

“ While thou hast known its fulness. All the world
Loves Great Ahasueras!
p. 39Ahasueras
All the world
Fears great Ahasueras! Kings, my child,
Are rarely loved as anything but kings.
Love, as I see it in the court and camp,
Means seeking royal favour. I would know
How love is fashioned in a maiden’s dreams.
Esther
Sire, love seeks nothing that kings can bestow.
Love is the king of all kings here below;
Love makes the monarch but a bashful boy,
Love makes the peasant monarch in his joy;
Love seeks not place, all places are the same,
When lighted by the radiance of love’s flame. ”

“ The New Year:
‘But you must open, too, your heart, for I am Love.’
p. 140DISARMAMENT We have outgrown the helmet and cuirass,
The spear, the arrow, and the javelin.
These crude inventions of a cruder age,
When men killed men to show their love of God,
And he who slaughtered most was greatest king.
We have outgrown the need of war!
Should men
Unite in this one thought, all war would end.
Disarm the world; and let all Nations meet
Like Men, not monsters, when disputes arise. ”

“ For the thought of the world is waking out of a slumber deep and long,
And the race is beginning to understand how Right can master Wrong.
And the eyes of the world are opening wide, and great are the truths they see ”

“ 166THE WAY Between the finite and the infinite
The missing link of Love has left a void.
Supply the link, and earth with Heaven will join
In one continued chain of endless life. ”

“ The opportunities of life are brought
To our own doors, not by capricious fate,
But by the strong compelling force of thought.
p. 136THE AGE OF MOTORED THINGS The wonderful age of the world I sing—
The age of battery, coil and spring,
Of steam, and storage, and motored thing.
Though faith may slumber and art seem dead,
And all that is spoken has once been said,
And all that is written were best unread;
Though hearts are iron and thoughts are steel,
And all that has value is mercantile,
Yet marvellous truths shall the age reveal. ”

“ Love one another, full two thousand years
Have passed away, yet earth is red with blood.
p. 57The strong male rulers of the world proclaim
Their weakness, when we ask that war shall cease.
Now will the poor weak women of the world
Proclaim their strength, and say that war shall end.
Hear, then, our edict: Never from this day
Will any woman on the crust of earth
Mother a warrior. We have sworn the oath
And will go barren to the waiting tomb
Rather than breed strong sons at war’s behest,
Or bring fair daughters into life, to bear
The pains of travail, for no end but war. ”

“ Such answering passion in her heart could rouse,
Or wake such tumult in her soul as this.
Let come what will, let Greece and Asia meet,
Let heroes die and kingdoms run with gore;
Let devastation spread from shore to shore—
Resplendent Helen finds her bondage sweet.
The whole world fights her battles, while she lies
Sunned in the fervour of young Paris’ eyes.
p. 10ON THE ISLE OF RHODES The battles ended, ardent Paris dead,
Of faithful Menelaus long bereft,
Time is the only suitor who is left:
Helen survives, with youth and beauty fled. ”

“ Not to the curious or impatient soul
That in the start, demands the end be shown,
And at each step, stops waiting for a sign;
But to the tireless toiler toward the goal,
Shall the great miracles of God be known
And life revealed, immortal and divine. ”

“ Her ways led out, to regions strange and vast.
p. 51Men stood aside and watched, dismayed, aghast,
And all the world demurred—
Misjudged her, and demurred.
Still on and up, from sphere to widening sphere,
Till thorny paths bloomed with the rose of fame.
Who once demurred, now followed with acclaim:
The hiss died in the cheer—
The loud applauding cheer.
She stood triumphant in that radiant hour,
Man’s mental equal, and competitor.
But ah! the cost! from out the heart of her
Had gone love’s motive power—
Love’s all-compelling power. ”

“ Gold rusts and shrivels in the hand that keeps it.
It grows in one that opens wide and free.
Who sows his harvest is the one who reaps it.
Give of thy love, nor wait to know the worth
Of what thou lovest; and ask no returning. ”

“ Better a barren soil than weed and tare,
Or sickly plants that die for want of care
In poisonous jungles, void of sun and air.
True Motherhood is not alone to breed
The human race; it is to know and heed
Its holiest purpose and its highest need.
Lord, speak again, so woman shall be stirred
With the full meaning of that mighty word
True Motherhood. She has not rightly heard.
p. 116MY HEAVEN Unhoused in deserts of accepted thought,
And lost in jungles of confusing creeds,
My soul strayed, homeless, finding its own needs
Unsatisfied with what tradition taught. ”

“ Go love thy brother up to God.
Behold each problem solved.
All sin is virtue unevolved.
p. 148STRENGTH Who is the strong? Not he who puts to test
His sinews with the strong and proves the best;
But he who dwells where weaklings congregate,
And never lets his splendid strength abate.
Who is the good? Not he who walks each day
With moral men along the high, clean way;
But he who jostles gilded sin and shame,
Yet will not sell his honour or his name. ”

“ One single great emotion of the heart.
p. 113LORD, SPEAK AGAIN When God had formed the Universe, He thought
Of all the marvels therein to be wrought
And to His aid then Motherhood was brought.
‘My lesser self, the feminine of Me,
She will go forth throughout all time,’ quoth He,
‘And make My world what I would have it be.
‘For I am weary, having laboured so,
And for a cycle of repose would go
Into that silence which but God may know.
‘Therefore I leave the rounding of My plan
To Motherhood; and that which I began
Let woman finish in perfecting man. ”

“ And it’s good-bye to letters from our lessers and our betters,
p. 16To the cold world’s smile or its frown.
We sail away on a sunny track
To find the summer and bring it back
And love is our only duty. ”

“ And the great hunger of the world for Love.
I know the goal to high achievement lies
Through the dull pathway of self-conquest first;
And on the stairs of little duties done
We climb to joys that stand thy test. O Time,
Be patient with me, and another day,
Perchance, in passing by, thine eyes may smile.
p. 70THE WORKER AND THE WORK In what I do I note the marring flaw,
The imperfections of the work I see;
Nor am I one who rather do than be,
Since its reversal is Creation’s law. ”

“ Divine the Powers that on this trio wait.
Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate.
Love, Work, and Faith—these three alone are great. ”

“ You may hammer away on the anvil of thought,
And fashion your word with care,
But unless you are stirred to the depths, that word
Shall die on the empty air.
p. 154For the word that comes from the brain alone,
Alone to the brain will speed;
But the word that sways, and stirs, and stays,
Oh! that is the word men heed.
p. 155ASSISTANCE Lean on no mortal, Love, and serve;
(For service is love’s complement)
But it was never God’s intent,
Your spirit from its path should swerve,
To gain another’s point of view. ”

“ A bosom void of sympathy and love.
p. 101If on the carrying winds my name be blown
To any land or time beyond my own,
Let it not be as one who gained the day
By crowding others from the chosen way;
Rather as one who missed the highest place
Pausing to cheer spent runners in the race.
To do—to have—is lesser than to BE:
The greater boon I ask, dear God, from Thee.
p. 102THANK GOD FOR LIFE Thank God for life, in such an age as this,
Rich with the promises of better things.
Thank God for being part of this great nation’s heart,
Whose strong pulsations are not ruled by kings. ”

“ God has His work and thou hast thine, oh, man.
Exert thy will and use it for control;
God gave thee jurisdiction of thy soul.
All thine immortal powers bring into play;
Think, act, strive, reason, then look up and pray.
p. 173CLIMBING Who climbs the mountain does not always climb.
The winding road slants downward many a time;
Yet each descent is higher than the last.
Has thy path fallen? That will soon be past.
Beyond the curve the way leads up and on.
Think not thy goal forever lost or gone.
Keep moving forward; if thine aim is right
Thou canst not miss the shining mountain height. ”

“ Ah, my poor world, however wrong thy part,
Still is there pity in my mother-heart.
p. 61THE HEIGHTS I cried, ‘Dear Angel, lead me to the heights,
And spur me to the top.’
The Angel answered, ‘Stop
And set thy house in order; make it fair
For absent ones who may be speeding there. ”

“ And a God of love behind it.
Oh, a good life, a sweet life, a large life I take it,
Is what He offers to you, and me;
A chance to do, and a chance to be,
Whatever we chose to make it.
Oh, a far way, a high way, a sure way He leads us;
And if the journey at times seems long,
We must trudge ahead, with a trustful song,
And know at the end He needs us.
p. 143NEW THOUGHT PASTELS p. 145A DIALOGUE Mortal
The world is full of selfishness and greed. ”

“ Disarm the world, and we will give you sons—
Sons to construct, and daughters to adorn
A beautiful new earth, where there shall be
Fewer and finer people, opulence
And opportunity and peace for all.
Until you promise peace no shrill birth-cry
Shall sound again upon the aging earth.
We wait your answer.’
And the world was still
While men considered.
p. 59THE WORLD-CHILD At times I am the mother of the world ”

“ Look to the Great Eternal Cause
And not to any man, for light.
Look in; and learn the wrong, and right,
From your own soul’s unwritten laws.
And when you question, or demur,
Let Love be your Interpreter. ”

“ Each mental wave we send out from the mind,
Or base, or kind,
Completes its circuit, then with added force
Seeks its own source. ”