Ella Wheeler Wilcox – A Girl's Autumn Reverie

We plucked a red rose, you and I

All in the summer weather;

Sweet its perfume and rare its bloom,

Enjoyed by us together.

The rose is dead, the summer fled,

And bleak winds are complaining;

We dwell apart, but in each heart

We find the thorn remaining.

We sipped a sweet wine, you and I,

All in the summer weather.

The beaded draught we lightly quaffed,

And filled the glass together.

Together we watched its rosy glow,

And saw its bubbles glitter;

Apart, alone, we only know

The lees are very bitter.

We walked in sunshine, you and I,

All in the summer weather.

The very night seemed noonday bright.

When we two were together.

I wonder why with our good-by

O'er hill and vale and meadow

There fell such shade, our paths seemed laid

Forevermore in shadow.

We dreamed a sweet dream, you and I,

All in the summer weather,

Where rose and wine and warm sunshine

Were mingled in together.

We dreamed that June was with us yet,

We woke to find December.

We dreamed that we two could forget,

We woke but to remember.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – A Woman's Love

 So vast the tide of Love within me surging,
It overflows like some stupendous sea,
The confines of the Present and To-be;
And 'gainst the Past's high wall I feel it urging,
As it would cry "Thou too shalt yield to me!"

All other loves my supreme love embodies;
I would be she on whose soft bosom nursed
Thy clinging infant lips to quench their thirst;
She who trod close to hidden worlds where God is,
That she might have, and hold, and see thee first.

I would be she who stirred the vague fond fancies,
Of thy still childish heart; who through bright days
Went sporting with thee in the old-time plays,
And caught the sunlight of thy boyish glances
In half-forgotten and long-buried Mays.

Forth to the end, and back to the beginning,
My love would send its inundating tide,
Wherein all landmarks of thy past should hide.
If thy life's lesson must be learned through sinning,
My grieving virtue would become thy guide.

For I would share the burden of thy errors,
So when the sun of our brief life had set,
If thou didst walk in darkness and regret,
E'en in that shadowy world of nameless terrors,
My soul and thine should be companions yet.

And I would cross with thee those troubled oceans
Of dark remorse whose waters are despair:
All things my jealous reckless love would dare,
So that thou mightst not recollect emotions
In which it did not have a part and share.

There is no limit to my love's full measure,
Its spirit gold is shaped by earth's alloy;
I would be friend and mother, mate and toy,
I'd have thee look to me for every pleasure,
And in me find all memories of joy.

Yet though I love thee in such selfish fashion,
I would wait on thee, sitting at thy feet,
And serving thee, if thou didst deem it meet.
And couldst thou give me one fond hour of passion,
I'd take that hour and call my life complete.

 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Realisation

 Hers was a lonely, shadowed lot;
Or so the unperceiving thought,
Who looked no deeper than her face,
Devoid of chiselled lines of grace –
No farther than her humble grate,
And wondered how she bore her fate.

Yet she was neither lone nor sad;
So much of love her spirit had,
She found an ever-flowing spring
Of happiness in everything.

So near to her was Nature’s heart
It seemed a very living part
Of her own self; and bud and blade,
And heat and cold, and sun and shade,
And dawn and sunset, Spring and Fall,
Held raptures for her, one and all.
The year’s four changing seasons brought
To her own door what thousands sought
In wandering ways and did not find –
Diversion and content of mind.

She loved the tasks that filled each day –
Such menial duties; but her way
Of looking at them lent a grace
To things the world deemed commonplace.

Obscure and without place or name,
She gloried in another’s fame.
Poor, plain and humble in her dress,
She thrilled when beauty and success
And wealth passed by, on pleasure bent;
They made earth seem so opulent.
Yet none of quicker sympathy,
When need or sorrow came, than she.
And so she lived, and so she died.

She woke as from a dream. How wide
And wonderful the avenue
That stretched to her astonished view!
And up the green ascending lawn
A palace caught the rays of dawn.
Then suddenly the silence stirred
With one clear keynote of a bird;
A thousand answered, till ere long
The air was quivering bits of song.
She rose and wandered forth in awe,
Amazed and moved by all she saw,
For, like so many souls who go

Away from earth, she did not know
The cord was severed.
Down the street,
With eager arms stretched forth to greet,
Came one she loved and mourned in youth;
Her mother followed; then the truth
Broke on her, golden wave on wave,
Of knowledge infinite. The grave,
The body and the earthly sphere
Were gone! Immortal life was here!
They led her through the Palace halls;
From gleaming mirrors on the walls
She saw herself, with radiant mien,
And robed in splendour like a queen,
While glory round about her shone.
‘All this, ’ Love murmured, ‘is your own.’
And when she gazed with wondering eye,
And questioned whence and where and why,
Love answered thus: ‘All Heaven is made
By thoughts on earth; your walls were laid,
Year after year, of purest gold;
The beauty of your mind behold
In this fair palace; ay, and more
Waits farther on, so vast your store.
I was not worthy when I died
To take my place here at your side;
I toiled through long and weary years
From lower planes to these high spheres;
And through the love you sent from earth
I have attained a second birth.
Oft when my erring soul would tire
I felt the strength of your desire;
I heard you breathe my name in prayer,
And courage conquered weak despair.
Ah! earth needs heaven, but heaven indeed
Of earth has just as great a need!

Across the terrace with a bound
There sped a lambkin with a hound
(Dumb comrades of the old earth land)
And fondled her caressing hand.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Three And One

Sometimes she seems so helpless and mild,

So full of sweet unreason and so weak,

So prone to some capricious whim or freak;

Now gay, now tearful, and now anger-wild,

By her strange moods of waywardness beguiled

And entertained, I stroke her pretty cheek,

And soothing words of peace and comfort speak;

And love her as a father loves a child.

Sometimes when I am troubled and sore pressed

On every side by fast advancing care,

She rises up with such majestic air,

I deem her some Olympian goddess-guest,

Who brings my heart new courage, hope, and rest.

In her brave eyes dwells balm for my despair,

And then I seem, while fondly gazing there,

A loving child upon my mothers breast.

Again, when her warm veins are full of life,

And youth’s volcanic tidal wave of fire

Sends the swift mercury of her pulses higher,

Her beauty stirs my heart to maddening strife,

And all the tiger in my blood is rife;

I love her with a lover’s fierce desire,

And find in her my dream, complete, entire,

Child, Mother, Mistress – all in one word – Wife.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Sing To Me

Sing to me! Something of sunlight and bloom,

I am so compassed with sorrow and gloom,

I am so sick with the world’s noisse and strife, -

Sing of the beauty and brightness of life –

Sing to me, sing to me!

Sing to me! Something that’s jubilant, glad!

I am so weary, my soul so sad.

All my earth riches are covered with rust,

All my bright dreams are but ashes and dust.

Sing to me, sing to me!

Sing og the blossoms that open in spring,

How the sweet flowers blow, and the long lichens cling,

Say, though the winter is round about me,

There are bright summers and springs yet to be.

Sing to me, sing to me!

Sing me a song full of hope and of truth,

Brimming with all the sweet fancies of youth!

Say, though my sorrow I may not forget,

I have not quite done with happiness yet.

Sing to me, sing to me!

Lay your soft fingers just here, on my cheek;

Turn the light lower – there- no, do not speak,

But sing! My heart thrills at your beautiful voice;

Sing till I turn from my grief and rejoice.

Sing to me, sing to me!