Ella Wheeler Wilcox
First Lines
A baby went to heaven while it slept,
A humble wild-rose, pink and slender,
A mighty monarch in the days of old
A poet toiled over a song, for the maid
A poet wandered the city street,
A queen of indolence and idle grace,
A rose in my garden, the sweetest and fairest,
A soul immortal, Time, God everywhere,
A truth that has long lain buried
A wild Pink nestled in a garden bed,
A yacht from its harbor ropes pulled free,
A year that was solemn, and sad and strange,
About a holy shrine or sacred place,
Across the sodden field we gaze,
After the summer glory has departed,
After you went away, our lovely room
All day the trees were moaning
All in the dark we grope along,
All love that has not friendship for its base,
All suddenly between me and the light,
All that I ask," says Love, "is just to stand
An infant lies in her cradle bed:
An infant wailing in nameless fear;
As a mother who dies in travail --
As I came through the Valley of Despair,
As long as men have eyes wherewith to gaze,
As the dead year is clasped by a dead December,
As the old year sinks down in Time's ocean,
As we gaze up life's slope, as we gaze
As we hurry away to the end, my friend,
As we speed out of youth's sunny station
As when the old moon lighted by the tender
As yon great Sun in his supreme condition
Astronomers may gaze the heavens o'er,
Back in the box by the curtains shaded,
Be not content -- contentment means inaction;
Beside us in our seeking after pleasures,
Between the acts while the orchestra played
Between the curtains of snowy lace,
Between the shore and the distant sky-lands,
Bohemia, o'er thy unatlassed borders
Changed? Yes, I will confess it - I have changed.
"Cinnamon Roses!" she said, "how fair,"
Cold is the wind, that blows up from the river.
Columbia, large-hearted and tender,
"Come closer," she said, "my sister,
Come, cuddle your head on my shoulder, dear,
Could I but measure my strength, by my love,
Day's sweetest moments are at dawn.
Dear God! there is no sadder fate in life,
Dear love, where the red lillies blossomed and grew,
Dear, when you lift your gentle heart in prayer,
Did you see Florabelle? has she passed you this morning?
Distrust that man who tells you to distrust;
Do you remember the name I wore --
Don't look for the flaws as you go through life
Drop down the crimson curtains,
Dying? I am not dying. Are you mad?
Each new invention doubles our worries an' our troubles,
Fair Freedom's ship, too long adrift --
False! Good God, I am dreaming!
Farther apart, each day, our lives are drifting;
Friend of my youth, let us talk of old times;
From the soul of a man who was homeless
Gather them out of the valley --
Give us that grand word "woman" once again,
God bless the hero of my song!
God sent us here to make mistakes,
Good-bye to the cradle, the dear wooden cradle
Hadst thou a ship, in whose vast hold lay stored
Have you heard of the Valley of Babyland,
He rose, and passing, paused by her.
He said he loved me! Then he called my hair
Heigh ho! well, the season's over!
Ho! sportsman Time, whose chargers fleet
How baseless is the mightiest earthly pride,
How can I wait until you come to me?
However skilled and strong art thou, my foe,
Hung on the casement that looked o'er the main,
I am a river flowing from God's sea
I am tired to-night, and something,
I care not who were vicious back of me,
I dwell in the western inland,
I gave a beggar from my little store
I have lived this life as the skeptic lives it,
I have written this day down in my heart
I hear the sound of the reapers,
I heard a low sound, like a troubled soul praying:
I heard a strain of music in the street --
I hold it true that thoughts are things
I knew it the first of the summer,
I knew that a baby was hid in that house,
I know not where to-morrow's paths may wend,
I know two women, and one is chaste
I left the farm when mother died and changed my place of dwelling
I list your prattle, baby boy,
I may not reach the heights I seek,
I met a young girl on the street;
I own the charms of lovely Nature; still,
I prayed for riches, and achieved success:
I said, last winter, "When the grasses grow,
I saw on the hills of the morning
I see the tall church steeples,
I shall not forget you. The years may be tender,
I think I hear the sound of horses' feet,
I think I never passed so sad an hour,
I think man's great capacity for pain
I think true love is something like a tree;
I told you the winter would go, love,
I tread the paths of earlier times
I walked to-day, in the grassy dell,
I want more lives in which to love
I was out promenading one fine summer day,
I will be true. Mad stars forsake their courses,
I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea
I'm no reformer; for I see more light
If all the end of this continuous striving
If I count my life by the ticking of clocks,
If one poor burdened toiler o'er life's road,
If, when I die, I must be buried, let
Immortal life is something to be earned,
In God's vast wisdom, infinite and grand --
In golden youth when seems the earth
In his great cushioned chair by the fender
In its giving and its getting,
In nature's bright blossoms not always reposes
In that great journey of the stars through space
In the dawn of the day when the sea and the earth
In the long run fame finds the deserving man.
In the midnight of darkness and terror,
In the rapture of life and of living,
In the warm yellow smile of the morning,
In through the kitchen, the boys came trooping:
Into the mellow light of the cloudless autumn day,
Is anyone sad in the world, I wonder?
It is a common fate - a woman's lot --
It is done! in the fire's fitful flashes,
It is easy to sit in the sunshine
It is soiled, and quite passé,
It is something too strange to understand,
It is well to be free in conversing,
It may be, yet I have not found it so.
It seemeth such a little way to me
Just when all hope had perished in my soul,
Keep out of the Past! for its highways
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Let no man pray that he know not sorrow,
Let the wild red-rose bloom. Though not to thee
Let there be many windows to your soul,
Let those slander fame who will --
Life has its shadows, as well as its sun;
Life is a Shylock; always it demands
Like an opera-house is the world, I ween,
Like some reformer, who with mien austere,
Like some school master, kind in being stern,
Linger, linger, oh royal year!
Lo! here's another corpse exhumed!
Long have the poets vaunted, in their lays,
Lost rays of light that wandered off alone
Love is the centre and circumference;
Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it;
Love thyself last. Look near, behold thy duty
Love, in the glow of the sunset,
Love, when we met, 'twas like two planets meeting,
Luck is the tuning of our inmost thought
Make thy life better than thy work. Too oft
Man has explored all countries and all lands,
Maybe this is fun, sitting in the sun,
Men have outgrown the worthless creed
Methought a great wind swept across the earth,
My heart and soul are all to tired to tell;
My life has been a summer day complete,
My life's long radiant Summer halts at last,
My Love was a poor man's daughter,
My soul is like a poor caged bird to-night,
Nay, seer, I do not doubt thy mystic lore,
Necessity, whom long I deemed my foe,
New Year, I look straight in your eyes --
Nine o'clock, and the sun shines as yellow and warm,
No classes here! Why, that is idle talk,
No joy for which thy hungering heart has panted,
No mortal yet has measured his full force.
Not always those who walk on steadily,
Not like a daring, bold, aggressive boy,
Not only sun-kissed heights are fair. Below
Not till we meet with Love in all his beauty,
Now God be with the men who stand
O yes, I love you, and with all my heart;
O! you who never bend the knee,
Of all the blessings which my life has known
Oh households wherein skeletons abide!
Oh many a duel the world has seen
Oh, do you remember that night, long ago,
Oh, I know a certain lady who is reckoned with the good,
Oh, man, with your wonderful dower,
Oh, you who read some song that I have sung --
On great cathedral window I have seen
On the river of life, as I float along,
On the white throat of the useless passion
Once in a while, in this world so strange,
Once there was a boat, locked fast to a shore,
Once, when the summer lay on the hilltops,
One bitter time of mourning, I remember,
One looks behind him to some vanished time
One night was full of rapture and delight --
Our lives are songs. God writes the words,
Our thoughts are molding unmade spheres,
Out from the harbour of youth's bay
Pain can go guised as joy, dross pass for gold,
Passion is what the sun feels for the earth
Regret with streaming eyes doth seem alway
Roses and Lilies, both are sweet;
Said Life to Death, "Methinks if I were you
Said the great machine of iron and wood,
She gave her soul and body for a carriage,
She rose up, in the early dawn,
She sits beside the window. All who pass
She stood beside me while I gave an order for a bonnet.
She waited in a rose-hued room;
She was a light and wanton maid:
She was my dream's fulfilment and my joy,
She woke as one wakes from a deep
Should some great angel say to me tomorrow,
Show me the way that leads to the true life.
Sit still, I say, and dispense with heroics
Sitting and watching the fire-light fall
Smile a little, smile a little,
So vast the tide of love within me surging,
So, thou hast the art, good dame, thou swearest,
Some have robes, of silk and velvet,
Somebody's baby was buried to-day --
Something is missing from the balmy spring.
Sometime fame shall come to me;
Sometimes I wish the railroads all were torn out,
Sometimes she seems so helpless and so mild,
Sometimes we mortals, writhing in bitter anguish,
Sometimes when I am all alone,
Sometimes when I have dropped to sleep,
Sometimes, when I am toil-worn and aweary,
Somewhere there is a spot of ground,
Straight through my heart this fact to-day,
Sun in my lattice, and sun on the sea
Talk happiness. The world is sad enough
That melancholy phrase "It might have been,"
The age is too diffusive. Time and Force
The artist looks down on his canvass,
The band was playing a waltz-quadrille,
The birds laugh loud and long together
The crimson life-drops from a virgin heart
The danger of war, with its havoc of life,
The day will dawn, when one of us shall hearken
The fault of the age is a mad endeavour
The fields were bleak and sodden.
The first flower of the spring is not so fair
The gate was thrown open, I rode out alone
The God of the day has vanished
The harsh king, Winter, sat upon the hills,
The hurry of the times affects us so
The mighty forces of mysterious space
The New Year wedded the winter --
The pain we have to suffer seems so broad,
The pessimistic locust, last to leaf,
The quiet graves of our country's braves
The shadows drop down o'er the fields tinged with brown,
The splendid discontent of God
The stork flew over a town one day,
The strings of my heart were strung by Pleasure,
The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun
The sun rode high in a cloudless sky
The Sunbeam loved the Moonbeam,
The sweet maid, Day, has pillowed her head
The sweetest songs that were ever sung,
The tears of fallen women turned to ice
The time has come when men with hearts and brains
The times are not degenerate. Man's faith
The uses of sorrow I comprehend
The woman he loved, while he dreamed of her,
The world has outlived all its passion,
There are songs enough for the hero
There are two angels, messengers of light,
There are two kinds of people on earth to-day;
There comes a time to every mortal being,
There is a picture, that I sometimes see,
There is a story of a beauteous land,
There is much that makes me sorry as I journey down life's way.
There is no thing we cannot overcome.
There is nothing, I hold, in the way of work
There lies in the centre of each man's heart
There never was success so nobly gained,
There sat two glasses filled to the brim,
There was a flame, oh! such a tiny flame --
There was a man, it was said one time,
There's a gaping rent in the curtain
There's many a house of grandeur,
These agent men! these agent men!
They drift down the hall together;
They stood at the garden gate.
This game of life is a dangerous play,
This is the way of it, wide world over,
This world is a sad, sad place I know;
Thou dost not know it! but to hear
Though thy cheek be fair, as the roses are,
Though with the gods the world is cumbered,
Thoughts do not need the wings of words
Three days agone, and she was here:
Through all the weary, hot midsummer time,
Through valley and hamlet and city,
Throughout these mellow autumn days,
Time's finger on the dial of my life
'Tis said, when we shall go across the river,
To yearn for what we have not had, to sit
Trust in thine own untried capacity
Twixt what thou art, and what thou wouldst be, let
Under the moon two lovers walked --
Under the snow in the dark and the cold,
Upon a couch all robed by careful hands
Wandered o'er the vast green plains of youth,
War is destructive, wasteful, brutal, yet
We must not force events, but rather make
We walk on starry fields of white
We walk upon the sea-shore, you and I,
We were both of us -- ay, we were both of us there,
We women teach our little sons how wrong
Well, Mabel, 'tis over and ended --
What a terrible night! Does the Night, I wonder --
What does our country need? Not armies standing
What glorious times we have had together,
What sounds so sweet as the glad words of greeting?
Whatever a man may think or feel
Whatever your work and whatever its worth,
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
When I am dead, if some chastened one,
When my blood flows calm as a purling river,
When on the crowded thoroughfare,
When Sleep drops down beside my Love and me,
When the glad spring time walked over the border,
When Tom and I were married, we took a little flat;
When Venus, mother and maker of blisses,
Where have they gone to -- the little girls
Wherefore in dreams are sorrows borne anew,
While forced to dwell apart from thy dear face,
Who thinks how desolate and strange
Why dost thou shrink from my approach, O Man?
With noiseless steps good goes its way;
With each strong thought, with every earnest longing
With ever some wrong to be righting,
Yea, she and I have broken God's command,
You call me an angel of love and of light,
You know that oasis, fresh and fair
You never can tell when you send a word,
You remember the hall on the corner?
You say that your nature is double; that life
