Poems

Poems List

Explore poems from our collection

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

True Charity

True Charity

I gave a beggar from my little store
Of well-earned gold. He spent the shining ore
And came again, and yet again, still cold

And…

325
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To Men

To Men

Sirs, when you pity us, I say
You waste your pity. Let it stay,
Well corked and stored upon your shelves,
Until you need it for yourselves. …

411
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Tired

Tired


I am tired to-night, and something,
The wind maybe, or the rain,
Or the cry of a bird in the copse outside,
Has brought back the past a…

367
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To An Astrologer

To An Astrologer

Nay, seer, I do not doubt thy mystic lore,
Nor question that the tenor of my life,
Past, present and the future, is revealed
There…

387
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Time's Defeat

Time's Defeat

Time has made conquest of so many things
That once were mine. Swift-footed, eager youth
That ran to meet the years; bold brigand health,

418
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Time And Love

Time And Love

Time flies. The swift hours hurry by
And speed us on to untried ways;

New seasons ripen, perish, die,
And yet love stays.

435
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Through The Valley

Through The Valley

(After James Thomson)

As I came through the Valley of Despair,
As I came through the valley, onmy sight,
More awful that t…

474
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Three Women

Three Women

My love is young, so young;
Young is her cheek, and her throat,
And life is a song to be sung
With love the word for each note.
<…

445
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Three Friends

Three Friends

Of all the blessings which my life has known,
I value most, and most praise God for three:
Want, Loneliness and Pain, those comrades true, …

551
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Thought-Magnets

Thought-Magnets


With each strong thought, with every earnest longing
For aught thou deemest needful to thy soul,
Invisible vast forces are set thro…

436
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

They Shall Not Win

They Shall Not Win

Whatever the strength of our foes is now,
Whatever it may have been,
This is our slogan, and this our vow-
They shall not win, th…

419
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Theory And Practice

Theory And Practice

The man of God stands, on the Sabbath-day,
Warning the sinners from the broad highway
That leads to death. He rolls his pious eye,

408
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The World's Need

The World's Need

So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind,

Is all the sad world needs.

313
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Yellow-Covered Almanac

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:

356
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Winds of Fate

The Winds of Fate

One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales

347
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Wheel of the Breast

The Wheel of the Breast

Through rivers of veins on the nameless quest
The tide of my life goes hurriedly sweeping,
Till it reaches that curious wheel o' …

331
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Voice

The Voice

I dreamed a Voice, of one God-authorised,
Cried loudly thro’ the world, ‘Disarm! Disarm! ’
And there was consernation in the camps;
And m…

416
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Way Of It

The Way Of It

This is the way of it, wide world over,
One is beloved, and one is the lover,

One gives and the other receives.
One lavishes al…

383
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Unattained

The Unattained

A vision beauteous as the morn,
With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming,
Slow glided o'er a field late shorn
Where walked a poet id…

381
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Universal Route

The Universal Route

As we journey along, with a laugh and a song,
We see, on youth’s flower-decked slope,

Like a beacon of light, shining fair on t…

411
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Tulip Bed At Greeley Square

The Tulip Bed At Greeley Square

You know that oasis, fresh and fair
In the city desert, as Greeley square?


That bright triangle of scented bl…

321
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Two Glasses

The Two Glasses

There sat two glasses, filled to the brim,
On a rich man's table, rim to rim.
One was ruddy and red as blood,
And one was clear as …

456
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Traveller

The Traveller

Reply to Rudyard Kipling’s ‘He travels the fastest who travels alone.’

Who travels alone with his eye on the heights,
Though he laugh…

522
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Truth Teller

The Truth Teller

The Truth Teller lifts the curtain,
And shows us the people's plight;
And everything seems uncertain,
And nothing at all looks rig…

379