Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Nov. 5, 1850 - Oct. 30, 1919

 

An Old Fan

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

(To Kitty, Her Reverie)

It is soiled, and quite passé,
Broken too, and out of fashion,
But it stirs my heart some way,
As I hold it here to-day,
With a dead year's grace and passion.
Oh, my pretty fan!

Precious dream and thrilling strain,
Rise up from that vanished season;
Back to heart and nerve and brain
Sweeps the joy as keen as pain,
Joy that asks no cause or reason.
Oh, my dainty fan!

Hopes that perished in a night
Gaze at me like spectral faces;
Grim despair and lost delight,
Sorrow long since gone from sight --
All are hiding in these laces.
Oh, my broken fan!

Let us lay the thing away --
I am sadder now, and older;
Fled the ballroom and the play --
You have had your foolish day,
And the night and life are colder.
Exit - little fan!

Source:

Poems of Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Copyright 1910
W.P. Nimmo, Hay, and Mitchell, Edinburgh