Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
If one poor burdened toiler o’er life’s road,
Who meets us by the way,
Goes on less conscious of his galling load,
Then life, indeed, does pay.
If we can show one troubled heart the gain
That lies alway in loss,
Why, then, we too are paid for all the pain
Of bearing life’s hard cross.
If some despondent soul to hope is stirred,
Some sad lip made to smile,
By any act of ours, or any word,
Then, life has been worth while.
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Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
We will be what we could be. Do not say,
"It might have been, had not or that, or this"
No fate can keep us from the chosen way;
He only might who is.
We will do what we could do. Do not dream
Chance leaves a hero, all uncrowned to grieve.
I hold, all men are greatly what they seem;
He does who could achieve.
We will climb where we could climb. Tell me not
Of adverse storms that kept thee from the height.
What eagle ever missed the peak he sought?
He always climbs who might.
I do not like the phrase, "It might have been!"
It lacks all force, and life's best truths perverts:
For I believe we have, and reach, and win,
Whatever our deserts.
More Poems of Encouragement by other Poets
Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I'm no reformer; for I see more light
Than darkness in the world; mine eyes are quick
To catch the first dim radiance of the dawn,
And slow to note the cloud that threatens storm.
The fragrance and the beauty of the rose
Delight me so, slight thought I give its thorn;
And the sweet music of the lark's clear song
Stays longer with me than the night hawk's cry.
And e'en in this great throe of pain called Life,
I find a rapture linked with each despair,
Well worth the price of Anguish. I detect
More good than evil in humanity.
Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes,
And men grow better as the world grows old.
More Optimistic Poems by other Poets
Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Distrust that man who tells you to distrust;
He takes the measure of his own small soul,
And thinks the world no larger. He who prates
Of human nature's baseness and deceit
Looks in the mirror of his heart, and sees
His kind therein reflected. Or perchance
The honeyed wine of life was turned to gall
By sorrow's hand, which brimmed his cup with tears,
And made all things seem bitter to his taste.
Give him compassion! But be not afraid
Of nectared Love, or Friendship's strengthening draught,
Nor think a poison underlies their sweets.
Look through true eyes - you will discover truth;
Suspect suspicion, and doubt only doubt.
More Poems About Truth by other Poets
Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The fault of the age is a mad endeavor
To leap to heights that were made to climb:
By a burst of strength, of a thought most clever,
We plan to forestall and outwit Time.
We scorn to wait for the thing worth having;
We want high noon at the day's dim dawn;
We find no pleasure in toiling and saving,
As our forefathers did in the old times gone.
We force our roses, before their season,
To bloom and blossom for us to wear;
And then we wonder and ask the reason
Why perfect buds are so few and rare.
We crave the gain, but despise the getting;
We want wealth - not as reward, but dower;
And the strength that is wasted is useless fretting
Would fell a forest or build a tower.
To covet the prize, yet to shrink from the winning;
To thirst for glory, yet fear to fight;
Why what can it lead to at last, but sinning,
To mental languor and moral blight?
Better the old slow way of striving,
And counting small gains when the year is done,
Than to use our force and our strength in contriving,
And to grasp for pleasure we have not won.
More New Year Poems by other Poets
Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
There is a story of a beauteous land,
Where fields were fertile and where flowers were bright;
Where tall towers glistened in the morning light,
Where happy children wandered hand in hand,
Where lovers wrote their names upon the sand.
They say it vanished from all human sight,
The hungry sea devoured it in a night.
You doubt the tale? ah, you will understand;
For, as men muse upon that fable old,
They give sad credence always at the last,
However they have cavilled at its truth,
When with a tear-dimmed vision they behold,
Swift sinking in the ocean of the Past,
The lovely lost Atlantis of their Youth.
More Poems on Aging by other Poets
Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Between the curtains of snowy lace,
Over the way is a baby's face;
It peeps forth, smiling in merry glee,
And waves its pink little hand at me.
My heart responds with a lonely cry -
But in the wonderful By-and-By -
Out from the window of God's "To Be,"
That other baby shall beckon to me.
That ever-haunting and longed-for face,
That perfect vision of infant grace,
Shall shine on me in a splendour of light,
Never to fade from my eager sight.
All that was taken shall be made good;
All that puzzles me understood;
And the wee white hand that I lost, one day,
Shall lead me into the Better Way.
More Baby Poems by other Poets
Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Think not some knowledge rests with thee alone.
Why, even God's stupendous secret, Death,
We one by one, with our expiring breath,
Do, pale with wonder, seize and make our own;
The bosomed treasures of the Earth are shown,
Despite her careful hiding; and the air
Yields its mysterious marvels in despair
To swell the mighty storehouse of things known.
In vain the sea expostulates and raves;
It cannot cover from the keen world's sight
The curious wonders of its coral caves.
And so, despite thy caution or thy tears,
The prying fingers of detective years
Shall drag thy secret out into the light.
Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Not till we meet with Love in all his beauty,
In all his solemn majesty and worth,
Can we translate the meaning of life's duty,
Which God oft writes in cipher at our birth.
Not till Love comes in all his strength and terror
Can we read others' hearts; not till then know
A wide compassion for all human error,
Or sound the quivering depths of mortal woe.
Not till we sail with him o'er stormy oceans,
Have we seen tempests; hidden in his hand
He holds the keys to all the great emotions;
Till he unlocks them, none can understand.
Not till we walk with him on lofty mountains
Can we quite measure heights. And, O sad truth!
When once we drink from his immortal fountains,
We bid farewell to the light heart of youth.
Thereafter our most perfect day will borrow
A dimming shadow from some dreaded night;
So great grows joy it merges into sorrow,
And evermore pain tinctures our delight.
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Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
As we hurry away to the end, my friend,
Of this sad little farce called existence,
We are sure that the future will bring one thing,
And that is the grave in the distance.
And so when our lives run along all wrong,
And nothing seems real or certain,
We can comfort ourselves with the thought (or not)
Of that spectre behind the curtain.
But we haven't much time to repine or whine,
Or to wound or jostle each other;
And the hour for us each is to-day, I say,
If we mean to assist a brother.
And there is no pleasure that earth gives birth,
But the worry it brings is double;
And all that repays for the strife of life
Is helping some soul in trouble.
I tell you, if I could go back the track
To my life's morning hour,
I would not set forth seeking name or fame,
Or that poor bauble called power.
I would be like the sunlight, and live to give;
I would lend, but I would not borrow;
Nor would I be blind and complain of pain,
Forgetting the meaning of sorrow.
This world is a vaporous jest at best,
Tossed off by the gods in laughter;
And a cruel attempt at wit were it,
If nothing better came after.
It is reeking with hearts that ache and break,
Which we ought to comfort and strengthen,
As we hurry away to the end, my friend,
And the shadows behind us lengthen.
More Poems About Helping Others by other Poets
Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Let mine not be the saddest fate of all,
To live beyond my greater self; to see
My faculties decaying, as the tree
Stands stark and helpless while its green leaves fall
Let me hear rather the imperious call,
Which all men dread, in my glad morning time,
And follow death ere I have reached my prime,
Or drunk the strengthening cordial of life's gall.
The lightning's stroke or the fierce tempest blast
Which fells the green tree to the earth to-day
Is kinder than the calm that lets it last,
Unhappy witness of its own decay.
May no man ever look on me and say,
"She lives, but all her usefulness is past."
More Living Life Poem by other Poets
Poet: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Dear Love, where the red lilies blossomed and grew
The white snows are falling;
And all through the woods where I wandered with you
The loud winds are calling;
And the robin that piped to us tune upon tune,
Neath the oak, you remember,
O’er hilltop and forest has followed the June
And left us December.
He has left like a friend who is true in the sun
And false in the shadows;
He has found new delights in the land where he’s gone,
Greener woodlands and meadows.
Let him go! what care we? let the snow shroud the lea
Let it drift on the heather;
We can sing through it all; I have you, you have me,
And we’ll laugh at the weather.
The old year may die and a new year be born
That is bleaker and colder:
It cannot dismay us; we dare it, we scorn,
For our love makes us bolder.
Ah, Robin! sing loud on your far distant lea,
You friend in fair weather!
But here is a song sung that’s fuller of glee
By two warm hearts together.