Poems

Poems List

Explore poems from our collection

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Presumption

Presumption


Whenever I am prone to doubt or wonder


I check myself, and say, 'That mighty One
Who made the solar system cannot blunder A…

363
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Queries

Queries


Well, how has it been with you since we met
That last strange time of a hundred times?
When we met to swear that we could forget—
I y…

337
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Poverty And Wealth

Poverty And Wealth

The stork flew over a town one day,
And back of each wing an infant lay;
One to a rich man’s home he brought,
And one he left at…

388
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Preaching Vs Practice

Preaching Vs Practice

It is easy to sit in the sunshine
And talk to the man in the shade;
It is easy to float in a well-trimmed boat,
And point out…

352
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Platonic

Platonic


I knew it the first of the summer,
I knew it the same at the end,
That you and your love were plighted,
But couldn’t you be my frien…

379
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

PH. Best & Co.'s Lager-Beer

PH. Best & Co.'s Lager-Beer

In every part of the thrifty town,
Whether my course be up or down,
In lane, and alley, and avenue,
Painted in yellow, …

341
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Peek-A-Boo

Peek-A-Boo


The cunningest thing that a baby can do
Is the very first time it plays peek-a-boo;


When it hides its pink little face in it…

375
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Perfectness

Perfectness


All perfect things are saddening in effect.
The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes,
The matchless tinting on the royal rose

330
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Pardoned Out

Pardoned Out

I’m pardoned out. Again the stars
Shine on me with their myriad eyes.
So long I’ve peered ‘twixt iron bars,
I’m awed by this expanse o…

404
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Over The May Hill

Over The May Hill

All through the night time, and all through the day time,
Dreading the morning and dreading the night,
Nearer and nearer we drift to th…

358
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Over The Alley

Over The Alley

Here in my office I sit and write
Hour on hour, and day on day,
With no one to speak to from morn till night,
Though I have a neighb…

442
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Our Lives

Our Lives

Our lives are songs. God writes the words,
And we set them to music at pleasure;
And the song grows glad, or sweet, or sad,
As we choose …

418
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Optimism

Optimism


Talk happiness. The world is sad enough
Without your woes. No path is wholly rough;
Look for the places that are smooth and clear,
A…

387
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Our Atlas

Our Atlas

Not Atlas, with his shoulders bent beneath the weighty world,
Bore such a burden as this man, on whom the Gods have hurled
The evils of old fes…

466
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Only A Slight Flirtation

Only A Slight Flirtation

‘Twas just a slight flirtation,
And where’s the harm, I pray,
In that amusing pastime
So much in vogue to-day?

442
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Only A Sad Mistake

Only A Sad Mistake

Only a blunder-a sad mistake;
All my own fault and mine alone.
The saddest error a heart can make;
I was so young, or I would ha…

451
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One Woman's History

One Woman's History

'The maiden free, the maiden wed.
Can never, never be the same,
A new life springs from out the dead.
And with the speaking of …

421
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One By One

One By One

Little by little and one by one,
Out of the ether, were worlds created;
Star and planet and sea and sun,
All in the nebulous Nothing wai…

415
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Old Rhythm And Rhyme

Old Rhythm And Rhyme

They tell me new methods now govern the Muses,
The modes of expression have changed with the times;
That low is the rank of the poet…

424
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Older Than You

Older Than You

We are younger in years! Yes, that is true;
But in some things we are older than you.
For instance, you sometimes say with a smile,

386
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Now I lay Me

Now I lay Me

When I pass from earth away,
Palsied though I be and gray,
May my spirit keep so young
That my failing, faltering tongue
Frames …

469
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Noblesse Oblige

Noblesse Oblige

I hold it the duty of one who is gifted
And specially dowered I all men’s sight,

To know no rest till his life is lifted
Full…

505
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

New And Old

New And Old

I and new love, in all its living bloom,
Sat vis-à-vis, while tender twilight hours
Went softly by us, treading as on flowers.

Th…

420
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My Vision

My Vision

Wherever my feet may wander
Wherever I chance to be,
There comes, with the coming of even' time
A vision sweet to me.
I see my moth…

445