Two Sunsets
In the fair morning of his life,
When his pure heart lay in his breast,
Panting, with all that wild unrest
To plunge into the great world's strife
That fills young hearts with mad desire,
He saw a sunset. Red and gold
The burning billows surged and rolled,
And upward tossed their caps of fire.
He looked. And as he looked the sight
Sent from his soul through breast and brain
Such intense joy, it hurt like pain.
His heart seemed bursting with delight.
So near the Unknown seemed, so close
He might have grasped it with his hand.
He felt his inmost soul expand,
As sunlight will expand a rose.
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Song Of The Sandwich
We
met at night in the season's hight,
Mid revel and mirth and song.
I looked in your eye with a mute, mute cry,
As you elbowed your way through the throng.
Alone in that crowd of men who bowed,
And flattered, and flirted around,
Your quick thought guessed the woe in my breast,
And you sprang to my side with a bound.
In a whisper as faint as a south wind's plaint,
I murmured my need to you.
'A sandwich!' I wailed, then your strong eye quailed,
For oh! they were thin and few.
And about them hustled and pushed and tussled,
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Daft
In the warm yellow smile of the morning,
She stands at the lattice pane,
And watches the strong young binders
Stride down to the fields of grain.
And she counts them over and over
As they pass her cottage door:
Are they six, she counts them seven;
Are they seven, she counts one more.
When the sun swings high in the heavens,
And the reapers go shouting home,
She calls to the household, saying,
'Make haste! for the binders have come
And Johnnie will want his dinner -
He was always a hungry child';
And they answer, 'Yes, it ia waiting';
Then tell you, 'Her brain is wild.'
Again, in the hush of the evening,
When the work of the day is done,
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The King and the Siren
The harsh King--Winter--sat upon the hills,
And reigned and ruled the earth right royally.
He locked the rivers, lakes, and all the rills--
"I am no puny, maudlin king," quoth he,
"But a stern monarch, born to rule, and reign;
And I'll show my power to the end.
The summer's flowery retinue I've slain,
And taken the bold, free North Wind for my friend.
"Spring, Summer, Autumn--feeble queens they were,
With their vast troops of flowers, birds and bees,
Soft winds, that made the long green grasses stir--
They lost their own identity in things like these!
I scorn them all! nay, I defy them all!
And none can wrest the sceptre from my hand.
The trusty North Wind answers to my call,
And breathes this icy breath upon the land."
The Siren--South Wind--listening the while,
Now floated airily across the lea.
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Christ Crucified
Now ere I slept, my prayer had been that I might see my way
To do the will of Christ, our Lord and Master, day by day;
And with this prayer upon my lips, I knew not that I dreamed,
But suddenly the world of night a pandemonium seemed.
From forest, and from slaughter house, from bull ring, and from stall,
There rose an anguished cry of pain, a loud, appealing call;
As man – the dumb beast’s next of kin – with gun, and whip, and knife,
Went pleasure-seeking through the earth, blood-bent on taking life.
From trap, and cage, and house, and zoo, and street, that awful strain
Of tortured creatures rose and swelled the orchestra of pain.
And then methought the gentle Christ appeared to me and spoke:
‘I called you, but ye answered not’ – and in my fear I woke.
Then next I heard the roar of mills; and moving through the noise,
Like phantoms in an underworld, were little girls and boys.
Their backs were bent, their brows were pale, their eyes were sad and old;
But by the labour of their hands greed added gold to gold.
Again the Presence and the Voice: ‘Behold the crimes I see,
As ye have done it unto these, so have ye done to me.’
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Then And Now
A little time agone, a few brief years,
And there was peace within our beauteous borders;
Peace, and a prosperous people, and no fears
Of war and its disorders.
Pleasure was ruling goddess of our land; with her attendant Mirth
She led a jubilant, joy-seeking band about the riant earth.
Do you recall those laughing days, my Brothers,
And those long nights that trespassed on the dawn?
Those throngs of idle dancing maids and mothers
Who lilted on and on-
Card mad, wine flushed, bejewelled and half stripped,
Yet women whose sweet mouth had never sipped
From sin's black chalice-women good at heart
Who, in the winding maze of pleasure's mart,
Had lost the sun-kissed way to wholesome pleasures of an earlier day.
Oh! You remember them! You filled their glasses;
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Muse And The Poet
The Muse said, Let us sing a little song
Wherein no hint of wrong,
No echo of the great world need, or pain,
Shall mar the strain.
Lock fast the swinging portal of thy heart;
Keep sympathy apart.
Sing of the sunset, of the dawn, the sea;
Of any thing or nothing, so there be
No purpose to thy art.
Yea, let us make, art for Art's sake.
And sing no more unto the hearts of men,
But for the critic's pen.
With songs that are but words, sweet sounding words,
Like joyous jargon of the birds.
Tune now thy lyre, O Poet, and sing on.
Sing of
THE DAWN
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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God Rules Alway
Into the world's most high and holy places
Men carry selfishness, and graft and greed.
The air is rent with warring of the races;
Loud Dogmas drown a brother's cry of need.
The Fleet-of-Creeds, upon Time's ocean lurches;
And there is mutiny upon her decks;
And in the light of temples, and of churches,
Against life's shores drift wrecks and derelicts.
(God rules, God rules alway.)
Right in the shadow of the lofty steeple,
Which crowns some costly edifice of faith,
Behold the throngs of hungry, unhoused people;
The 'Bread Line,' flanked by charity and death.
See yonder Churchman, opulently doing
Unnumbered deeds, which gladden and resound;
The while his thrifty tenant is pursuing
The white slave trade on sacred, untaxed ground.
(God rules, God rules alway.)
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Camp Fire
When night hung low and dew fell damp,
There fell athwart the shadows
The gleaming watchfires of the camp,
Like glow-worms on the meadows.
The sentinel his measured beat
With measured tread was keeping,
While like bronze statues at his feet
Lay tired soldiers, sleeping.
On some worn faces of the men
There crept a homesick yearning,
Which made it almost seem again,
The child-look was returning.
While on full many a youthful brow,
Till now to care a stranger,
The premature grave lines told how
They had grown old through danger.
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Mother's Prayer
A mother kneels by the cradle,
Where her little infant lies,
And she sees the ghastly shadows
Creeping around his eyes.
And she clasps her hands together,
And her heart beats loud and wild,
And she cries in a gush of anguish,
'O Father! save my child.
'Oh! do not, do not take him
So soon to the home on high;
My beautiful, dark-eyed darling,
O God! he must not die.
I cannot pray in meekness,
'My Father's will be done.'
I can only cry in anguish,
'Oh! save my infant son.''
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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