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Woman To Man

Woman To Man

You do but jest, sir, and you jest not well,
How could the hand be enemy of the arm,
Or seed and sod be rivals! How could light
Feel jealousy of heat, plant of the leaf
Or competition dwell 'twixt lip and smile?
Are we not part and parcel of yourselves?
Like strands in one great braid we intertwine
And make the perfect whole. You could not be,
Unless we gave you birth; we are the soil
From which you sprang, yet sterile were that soil
Save as you planted. (Though in the Book we read
One woman bore a child with no man's aid
We find no record of a man-child born
Without the aid of woman! Fatherhood
Is but a small achievement at the best
While motherhood comprises heaven and hell.)
This ever-growing argument of sex
Is most unseemly, and devoid of sense.
Why waste more time in controversy, when
There is not time enough for all of love,
Our rightful occupation in this life.
Why prate of our defects, of where we fail
When just the story of our worth would need
Eternity for telling, and our best
Development comes ever thro' your praise,
As through our praise you reach your highest self.
Oh! had you not been miser of your praise
And let our virtues be their own reward
The old established, order of the world
Would never have been changed. Small blame is ours
For this unsexing of ourselves, and worse
Effeminizing of the male. We were
Content, sir, till you starved us, heart and brain.
All we have done, or wise, or otherwise
Traced to the root, was done for love of you.
Let us taboo all vain comparisons,
And go forth as God meant us, hand in hand,
Companions, mates and comrades evermore;
Two parts of one divinely ordained whole.
339

Wishing

Wishing


Do you wish the world were better?
Let me tell you what to do:
Set a watch for your actions,
Keep them always straight and true;
Rid tour mind of selfish motives;
Let your thoughts be clean and high.
You can make a little Eden
Of the sphere you occupy.

Do you wish the world were wiser?
Well, suppose you made a start,
By accumulating wisdom

In the scrapbook of your heart:
Do not waste one page on folly;
Live to learn, and learn to live.


If you want to give men knowledge
You must get it, ere you give.

Do you wish the world were happy?
Then remember day by day
Just to scatter seeds of kindness

As you pass along the way;
For the pleasures of the many
May ofttimes traced to one,


As the hand that plants an acorn
Shelters armies from the sun.
477

Will

Will


There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great;
All things give way before it, soon or late.
What obstacle can stay the mighty force
Of the sea-seeking river in its course,
Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait?
Each well-born soul must win what it deserves.
Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate
Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves,
Whose slightest action or inaction serves
The one great aim. Why, even Death stands still,
And waits an hour sometimes for such a will.
488

Widows

Widows


The world was widowed by the death of Christ:
Vainly its suffering soul for peace has sought
And found it not.
For nothing, nothing, nothing has sufficed
To bring back comfort to the stricken house
From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse.


In its long widowhood the world has striven
To find diversion. It has turned away
From the vast awefull silences of Heaven
(Which answer but with silence when we pray)
And sought for something to assuage its grief.
Some surcease and relief
From sorrow, in pursuit of mortal joys.
It drowned God's stillness in a sea of noise;
It lost God's presence in a blur of forms;
Till, bruised and bleeding with life's brutal storms,
Unto immutable and speechless space
The World lifts up its face,
Its haggard, tear-drenched face,
And cries aloud for faith's supreme reward,
The promised Second Coming of its Lord.
So many widows, widows everywhere,
The whole earth teems with widows.
Guns that blare-
Winged monsters of the air-
And deep-sea monsters leaping through the water,
Hell bent on slaughter,
All these plough paths for widows. Maids at dawn,
And brides at noon, ere eventide pass on
Into the ranks of widows: but to weep
Just for a little space; then will grief sleep
In their young bosoms, where sweet hope belongs,
New love will sing once more its age-old songs,
And life bloom as a rose-tree blooms again
After a night of rain.
There are complacent widows clothed in crêpe
Who simulate a grief that is not real.
Through paths of seeming sorrow they escape
From disappointed hopes to some ideal,
Or, from the penury of unloved wives
Walk forth to opulent lives.
And there are widows who shed all their tears
Just at the first
In one wild burst,
And then go lilting lightly down the years:
Black butterflies, they flit from flower to flower
And live in the thin pleasures of the hour;
Merging their tender memories of the dead
In tenderer dreams of being once more wed.



But there are others: women who have proved
That loving greatly means so being loved.
Women who through full beauteous years have grown
Into the very body, souls, and heart
Of their dear comrades. When death tears apart
Such close-knit bonds as these, and one alone
Out to the larger freer life is called,
And one is left-
Then God in heaven must sometimes be appalled
At the wild anguish of the soul bereft,
And unto His Son must say, 'I did not know
Mortals could suffer so.'
But Christ, remembering Gethsemane,
Will answer softly, 'It was known to Me.'
God's alchemist, old Time, will merge to calm
That bitter anguish; but there is no balm
Save the sweet certitude that each long day
Is one step in a stair
That circles up to where freed spirits stay.


Widows, so many widows everywhere.


The world was widowed by the death of Christ,
And nothing, nothing, nothing has sufficed
To bring back comfort to the stricken house
From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse.
Hasten, dear Lord, with Thy Millennium,
Hasten and come.
333

Why The Daisies Are Not All White

Why The Daisies Are Not All White

Uncle Rob says:
Once the daisies all were white,
Till a baby fellow
Ate his supper down one night,
And stained his face all yellow.


Smeared with butter, off to bed
Crept the sleepy flower.
'Fie!' the good nurse dew-drop said,
Come now to my bower.


'Let me wash you clean, I pray,
Like the pink and rosy.'
But the daisy pulled away
Like a stubborn posy.
All unwashed he went to sleep,
Naughty little fellow.
Ever since he's had to keep
That great patch of yellow.
So Uncle Rob says.
333

Which are You?

Which are You?

There are two kinds of people on earth to-day;
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.


Not the sinner and saint, for it's well understood,
The good are half bad, and the bad are half good.


Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man's wealth,
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.


Not the humble and proud, for in life's little span,
Who puts on vain airs, is not counted a man.


Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years
Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears.


No; the two kinds of people on earth I mean,
Are the people who lift, and the people who lean.


Wherever you go, you will find the earth's masses,
Are always divided in just these two classes.


And oddly enough, you will find too, I ween,
There's only one lifter to twenty who lean.


In which class are you? Are you easing the load,
Of overtaxed lifters, who toil down the road?


Or are you a leaner, who lets others share
Your portion of labor, and worry and care?
362

Where Are The Temperance People? In Reply To A Query

Where Are The Temperance People? In Reply To A Query

Where are the temperance people?
Well, scattered here and there:
Some gathering in their produce
To show at the autumn fair;
Some threshing wheat for market,
And others threshing rye,
That will go to the fat distiller
For whiskey by-and-by.


And some are selling their hop crops
At a first-rate price, this year,
And the seller pockets the money,
While the drunkard swallows the beer.
And some 'staunch temperance workers'(?)
Who'd do anything for the cause,
Save to give it a dime or a moment,
Or work for temperance laws,


May be seen from now to election,
Near any tavern stand
Where liquor flows in plenty,
With a voter on either hand.
And these temperance office-seekers
That we hear of far and near
Are the ones who furnish the money
That buys the lager-beer.


But these are only the black sheep
Who want the temperance name
Without living up to the precepts,
And so bring themselves to shame.
And the true, brave temperance people,
Who have the cause at heart,
Are doing the work that's nearest,
Each his allotted part:


Some lifting the fallen drunkard,
Some preaching unto men,
Some aiding the cause with money,
And others with the pen.
Each has a different mission,
Each works in a different way,
But their works shall melt together
In one grand result, some day.


And one, our chief (God bless him),
Is working day and night:



With his sword of burning eloquence,
He is fighting the noble fight.
Whether in lodge or convention,
Whether at home or abroad,
He is reaping a golden harvest
To lay at the feet of God.


Where are the temperance people?
All scattered here and there,
Sowing the seeds of righteous deeds,
That the harvest may be fair.
351

When

When


I dwell in the western inland,
Afar from the sounding sea,
But I seem to hear it sobbing


And calling aloud to me,
And my heart cries out for the ocean
As a child for its mother's breast,
And I long to lie on its waters
And be lulled in its arms to rest.

I can close my eyes and fancy
That I hear its mighty roar,
And I see its blue waves splashing
And plunging against the shore;
And the white foam caps the billow,
And the sea-gulls wheel and cry,
And the cool wild wind is blowing,
And the ships go sailing by.

Oh, wonderful, mighty ocean!
When shall I ever stand,
Where my heart has gone already,
There on thy gleaming strand!
When shall I ever wander
Away from the inland west,
And strand by thy side, dear ocean,
And rock on thy heaving breast?
310

When Love Is Lost

When Love Is Lost

When love is lost, the day sets towards the night,
Albeit the morning sun may still be bright,
And not one cloud-ship sails across the sky.
Yet from the places where it used to lie
Gone is the lustrous glory of the light.


No splendour rests in any mountain height,
No scene spreads fair and beauteous to the sight;
All, all seems dull and dreary to the eye
When love is lost.


Love lends to life its grandeur and its might;
Love goes, and leaves behind it gloom and blight;
Like ghosts of time the pallid hours drag by,
And grief's one happy thought is that we die.
Ah, what can recompense us for its flight
When love is lost?
411

What Uncle Rob Says

What Uncle Rob Says

Uncle Rob says,
That once on a time the fire flies
Were stars with the others up in the skies.


They used to shimmer, and dance and play,
Night after night in the Milky Way.


But when their papa, the stern old Sun
Said 'off to bed with you every one,'


These bold little stars refused to obey,
'Let's hide in that cloud and then run away.'


'Let's run to the earth,' these bad stars said
'We are quite too old to be sent to bed.'


So then they were exiled out of the skies,
And that's how we came with the fire flies,
So Uncle Rob says.
593

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Identification and basic context

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American poet and novelist, born in Wisconsin. She is best known for her popular and inspirational poetry, often characterized by its accessible language and optimistic or sentimental themes. Wilcox achieved considerable fame during her lifetime, becoming one of the most widely read and commercially successful poets of her era. Her work often explored themes of love, nature, spirituality, and the power of positive thought, resonating with a broad audience. She wrote primarily in English and was a significant voice in American popular literature during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Childhood and education

Wilcox grew up in a rural setting in Wisconsin and showed an early inclination towards writing, composing her first poem at the age of seven. Her formal education was limited; she attended the University of Wisconsin for a brief period but left to pursue her literary ambitions. Despite this, she was a voracious reader and a self-taught individual, largely shaping her own intellectual and artistic development. Her early life experiences, including financial struggles within her family, likely contributed to her later focus on themes of perseverance and positive outlook.

Literary trajectory

Wilcox's literary career began in her youth, with poems appearing in local and then national publications. Her first book of poetry, "The Beautiful and the Ugly," was published in 1877, but it was her poem "The Beautiful World" (later retitled "The World Beautiful") that brought her widespread recognition. She went on to publish numerous volumes of poetry and prose, becoming a prolific and popular writer. Her work evolved in terms of its thematic focus, often emphasizing self-help, spiritualism, and a cheerful disposition, which cemented her reputation as a poet of encouragement and optimism. She was also a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines, further expanding her reach.

Works, style, and literary characteristics

Wilcox's most famous works include poetry collections like "Poems of Passion" (1883), "The Beautiful World" (1890), and "Sonnets of Sorrow and Triumph" (1907), as well as the inspirational prose work "The Art of Being Alive" (1913). Her dominant themes revolve around love, loss, nature, the spiritual realm, and the importance of a positive mental attitude. Her style is generally characterized by simplicity, directness, and a strong emotional appeal, making her poetry highly accessible to a broad readership. She often employed traditional forms like the sonnet but was also known for her lyrical and often aphoristic verse. Her poetic voice is typically warm, empathetic, and encouraging, aiming to uplift and inspire. While not known for radical formal innovations, her strength lay in her ability to articulate common sentiments and philosophical ideas in memorable and quotable ways. Her association with popular poetry and the self-help genre often meant her work was distinguished from more experimental or avant-garde literary movements of her time.

Cultural and historical context

Wilcox wrote during a period of significant social and cultural change in the United States, including the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, and the rise of the New Thought movement, which emphasized the power of the mind to influence one's circumstances. Her optimistic and spiritual themes aligned well with the prevailing mood of self-improvement and the search for meaning that characterized this era. She was a contemporary of other popular poets and writers, and her work was widely circulated through newspapers and magazines, reflecting the growing mass media landscape. Her accessible style and reassuring messages provided a form of comfort and guidance to many readers navigating the complexities of modern life.

Personal life

Wilcox experienced personal hardships, including her father's early death and the family's subsequent financial difficulties, which likely influenced her later emphasis on resilience and financial independence. She married Robert Wilcox in 1884, and their relationship provided stability. She was known to be interested in spiritualism and New Thought philosophy, which permeated her writing and offered a framework for her optimistic outlook. Her public persona was one of warmth and approachability, and she engaged actively with her audience through her writings.

Recognition and reception

Wilcox achieved immense popularity during her lifetime, becoming one of the best-selling poets in the United States. Her work was widely published, translated, and read, earning her considerable fame and financial success. She was often referred to as "the people's poet." While she enjoyed broad popular appeal and critical acknowledgment of her ability to connect with readers, her work was sometimes viewed by literary elites as sentimental or lacking in artistic depth compared to more formally complex poets. Nevertheless, her place in popular culture and her impact on readers seeking comfort and inspiration are undeniable.

Influences and legacy

Wilcox was influenced by contemporary popular poets and by the philosophical currents of her time, such as New Thought and the broader interest in spirituality and positive thinking. Her legacy lies in her enduring popularity and her contribution to the genre of inspirational poetry. She influenced many subsequent writers in the self-help and inspirational genres, and her poems continue to be quoted and shared for their uplifting messages. While not typically considered a canonical figure in "high" literature, her work remains significant for its widespread appeal and its role in shaping popular literary tastes and providing solace to generations of readers.

Interpretation and critical analysis

Scholarly interpretation of Wilcox's work often focuses on its role within the context of popular literature, the New Thought movement, and the rise of women writers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Critics analyze her thematic focus on optimism and self-reliance, and her accessible style, as key factors in her broad appeal. Debates may arise regarding the artistic merit of her sentimentalism versus the genuine emotional resonance of her message.

Curiosities and lesser-known aspects

Wilcox was known for her belief in reincarnation and her interest in occult and spiritualist phenomena. She was also a proponent of vegetarianism. Her prolific output and sustained popularity made her a significant literary entrepreneur of her day. Despite her sentimental image, she was also a strong advocate for women's rights and empowerment, often weaving themes of independence and self-worth into her poetry.

Death and memory

Ella Wheeler Wilcox died in New York City at the age of 69. Her death was widely noted in the press, reflecting her considerable public profile. Her memory is preserved through the continued availability of her books and her frequent inclusion in anthologies of popular American poetry. Her poems remain widely circulated online and in popular culture, continuing to offer messages of hope and encouragement to new generations of readers.