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
grow means soul suffer whatever
I know that the soul is aidedSometimes by the heart's unrest,And to grow means often to suffer --But whatever is--is best.
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.
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.
call choosing led needs souls
Some souls there are that needs must tasteOf wrong, ere choosing right;We should not call those years a wasteWhich led us to the light.
ardent best less lived ripe score souls three
Oh! what are years? A ripe three score and tenHold often less of life, in its best sense,Than just a twelvemonth lived by other men,Whose high-strung souls are ardent and intense.
love sorrows souls waters
Our souls should be vessels receivingThe waters of love for relievingThe sorrows of men.
eternal final good great work
I know there are no errors,In the great Eternal plan,And all things work togetherFor the final good of man.
love passionate
Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other,That passionate Love is Pain's own mother.
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.
earth kinds lift people
The two kinds of people on earth that I meanAre the people who lift and the people who lean.
deal flatter fleeting full love please scarcely
We flatter those we scarcely know,We please the fleeting guest,And deal full many a thoughtless blowTo those who love us best.
We find what we look for in this world.
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.