Books: Poems of Sentiment
E >>
Ella Wheeler Wilcox >> Poems of Sentiment
Transcribed from the 1919 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
POEMS OF SENTIMENT
Contents:
Double Carnations
Never Mind
Two Women
It All Will Come Out Right
A Warning
Shrines
The Watcher
Swimming Song
The Law
Love, Time, and Will
The Two Ages
Couleur de Rose
Last Love
Life's Track
An Ode to Time
Regret and Remorse
Easter Morn
Blind
The Yellow-covered Almanac
The Little White Hearse
Realisation
Success
The Lady and the Dame
Heaven and Hell
Love's Supremacy
The Eternal Will
Insight
A Woman's Love
The Paean of Peace
"Has Been"
Duty's Path
March
The End of the Summer
Sun Shadows
"He that Looketh"
An Erring Woman's Love
A Song of Republics
Memorial Day--1892
When baby Souls Sail Out
To Another Woman's Baby
Diamonds
Rubies
Sapphires
Turquoise
Reform
A Minor Chord
Death's Protest
September
Wail of an Old-timer
Was, Is, and Yet-to-be
Mistakes
Dual
The All-creative Spark
Be not Content
Action
Two Roses
Satiety
A Solar Eclipse
A Suggestion
The Depths
Life's Opera
The Salt Sea-wind
New Year
Concentration
Thoughts
Luck
DOUBLE CARNATIONS
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 poor Pink pined and faded day by day:
Her restless lover from his prison bower
Called in a priestly bee who passed that way,
And sent a message to the sorrowing flower.
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.
NEVER MIND
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.
So work along in your chosen niche
With a steady purpose to nerve you;
Let nothing men say who pass your way
Relax your courage or swerve you.
The idle will flock by the Temple of Art
For just the pleasure of gazing;
But climb to the top and do not stop,
Though they may not all be praising.
TWO WOMEN
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.
The other woman, with heart of flame,
Went mad for a love that marred her name:
And out of the grave of her murdered faith
She rose like a soul that has passed through death.
Her aims are noble, her pity so broad,
It covers the world like the mercy of God.
A soother of discord, a healer of woes,
Peace follows her footsteps wherever she goes.
The worthier life of the two, no doubt,
And yet "Society" locks her out.
IT ALL WILL COME OUT RIGHT
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.
Though poor and loveless creeds may pass
For pure religion's gold;
Though ignorance may rule the mass
While truth meets glances cold,
I know a law complete, sublime,
Controls us with its might,
And in God's own appointed time
It all will come out right.
A WARNING
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.
SHRINES
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.
THE WATCHER
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.
And yet it lingers, suffering and wailing,
As sick hearts will that feed upon despair,
And that lone watcher, unrelieved, is paling
With vigils that no pitying soul can share.
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.
SWIMMING SONG
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.
Throat and cheek and tress
Are damp where thy salt lips press!
There is strength and bliss in thy daring kiss,
And joy in thy bold caress.
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 LAW
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.
It slept in the jewel, it leaped in the wave,
It roamed in the forest, it rose in the grave,
It took on strange garbs for long aeons of years,
And now in the soul of yourself it appears.
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.
Once list to that voice and all tumult is done,
Your life is the life of the Infinite One;
In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause,
With love for the purpose and love for the cause.
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.
LOVE, TIME, AND WILL
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.
The way is love, the time is now, and will
The patient method. Let this knowledge fill
Thy consciousness, and fate and circumstance,
Environment, and all the ills of chance
Must yield before the concentrated might
Of those three words, as shadows yield to light.
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.
THE TWO AGES
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.
Those glorious windows shine upon the black
And hideous structure of the guillotine;
Beside the haloed countenance of saints
There hangs the multiple and knotted lash.
The Christ of love, benign and beautiful,
Looks at the torture-rack, by hate conceived
And bigotry sustained. The prison cell,
With blood-stained walls, where starving men went mad,
Lies under turrets matchless in their grace.
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?
Not great this age in beauty or in art;
Nothing is wrought to-day that shall endure,
For earth's adornment, through long centuries
Not ours the fervid worship of a God
That wastes its splendid opulence on glass,
Leaving but hate, to give it mortal kin.
Yet great this age: its mighty work is man
Knowing himself, the universal life.
And great our faith, which shows itself in works
For human freedom and for racial good.
The true religion lies in being kind.
No age is greater than its faith is broad.
Through liberty and love men climb to God.
COULEUR DE ROSE
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 glories for the eye,
Such pleasures for the ear,
The senses reel with all they feel
And see and taste and hear;
There are such ways of doing good,
Such ways of being kind,
And bread that's cast on waters fast
Comes home again, I find.
(O love, stay 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!)
LAST LOVE
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.
LIFE'S TRACK
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.
And vain seems the effort of spur and whip,
Or the hoarse, hot cry of the pallid lip,
When once we have fallen back.
It is better to keep on stirrup and rein,
The steady poise and the careful strain,
In speeding along Life's track.
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.
AN ODE TO TIME
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.
As one who, frightened, flying, flings
Her riches down at random,
Your course is paved with precious things
Life casts before your tandem:
The warrior's fame, the conqueror's crown,
Great creeds for ages cherished,
Beneath your chariot-wheels were thrown,
And, crushed to earth, they perished.
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?
You do not need my joys, I say,
Home, love, and friends united -
I beg you turn and go the way
Where wrong waits to be righted;
Or pause, and let us chat a while:
I'll listen--not too near you,
For oh! no matter how you smile,
I fear you, Time, I fear you!
REGRET AND REMORSE
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.
EASTER MORN
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.
BLIND
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!
It cannot distinguish between the glow
Of a gleaming star, in the sky of gold,
Or a spent cigar in the dust below -
'Twixt unclad Eve or a wanton bold;
And ever if woman speaks what she feels
(And feels consistent with God's great plan)
It has cast her under its juggernaut wheels,
Since the world began--since the world began.
THE YELLOW-COVERED ALMANAC
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.
I find I take to city ways just like a duck to water;
I like the racket and the noise and never tire of shows;
And there's no end of comfort in the mansion of my daughter,
And everything is right at hand and money freely flows;
And hired help is all about, just listenin' to my call -
But I miss the yellow almanac off my old kitchen wall.
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 cage.
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.
I tried to buy one recently; there wa'n't none in the city!
They toted out great calendars, in every shape and style.
I looked at 'em in cold disdain, and answered 'em in pity -
"I'd rather have my almanac than all that costly pile."
And though I take to city life, I'm lonesome after all
For that old yellow almanac upon my kitchen wall.
THE LITTLE WHITE HEARSE
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.
Somebody's sorrow is making me weep:
I know not her name, hut I echo her cry,
For the dearly bought baby she longed so to keep,
The baby that rode to its long-lasting sleep
In the little white hearse that went rumbling by.
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.
REALISATION
(At the Old Homestead)
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.
SUCCESS
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 toil on, through trouble and pain,
There are hands that will shelter and feed;
But once let us dare to ATTAIN -
They will bruise our bare hearts till they bleed.
'Tis the worst of all crimes to succeed,
Know this as ye feast on a crust,
Know this in the darkness and dust,
Ye who 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.