Ella Wilcox
Ella Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcoxwas an American author and poet. Her best-known work was Poems of Passion. Her most enduring work was "Solitude", which contains the lines, "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone". Her autobiography, The Worlds and I, was published in 1918, a year before her death...
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth5 November 1850
cannot maladies minor mortal talk worn
Talk health. The dreary, never-changing taleOf mortal maladies is worn and stale.You cannot charm, or interest, or pleaseBy harping on that minor chord, disease.
path sad talk wholly
Talk happiness. The world is sad enoughWithout your woes. No path is wholly rough.
gate goes golden heart memory walks
Back on its golden hingesThe gate of Memory swings,And my heart goes into the gardenAnd walks with the olden things.
alone below dead dream earth fear full god great heaven judgement nobody seemed sky space view
Conversation"God and I in space alone . . .and nobody else in view . . ."And where are all the people,Oh Lord" I said, "the earth below and the sky overheadand the dead that I once knew?""That was a dream," God smiledand said: "The dream that seemed tobe true; there were no peopleliving or dead; there was no earth, and no sky overhead,there was only myself in you.""Why do I feel no fear?" I asked,"meeting you here in this way?For I have sinned, I know full welland is there heaven and is there hell,and is this Judgement Day?""Nay, those were but dreams" the Great God said, "dreams that have ceased to be.There are no such things as fear and sin;there is no you . . . you never have been.There is nothing at all but me.
action earnest fool great inaction purpose slightest soul whose win
Each well-born soul must win what it deserves.Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunateIs he whose earnest purpose never swerves,Whose slightest action or inaction servesThe one great aim.
love passionate
Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other,That passionate Love is Pain's own mother.
alight along bears bosom church float lamp love million pointing soul though thousand
The world has a thousand creeds, and never a one have I;Not a church of my own, though a million spires are pointing the way on high.But I float on the bosom of faith, that bears me along like a river;And the lamp of my soul is alight with love for life, and the world, and the Giver.
cannot dam fail knows river seeking
The river seeking for the seaConfronts the dam and precipice,Yet knows it cannot fail or miss;You will be what you will to be!
gives wide
This is the way of it, wide world over,One is beloved, and one is the lover,One gives and the other receives.
breaks earth endless goes heart learns life rise sad sun
This is the way of it, sad earth over,The heart that breaks is the heart of the lover,And the other learns to forget.For what is the use of endless sorrow?Though the sun goes down, it will rise to-morrow;And life is not over yet.
earth kinds lift people
The two kinds of people on earth that I meanAre the people who lift and the people who lean.
gifts lies pleasure taking
For here lies the pleasure of living:In taking God's bounties, and givingThe gifts back again.
lies life unfinished work
Think your life was made for dreaming, nothing more,When God's work lies all unfinished at your door?
changing content door four seasons thousands wandering ways
The year's four changing seasons broughtTo her own door what thousands soughtIn wandering ways and did not find -Diversion and content of mind.