A Fable.

        Some cawing Crows, a hooting Owl,
        A Hawk, a Canary, an old Marsh-Fowl,
    One day all meet together
        To hold a caucus and settle the fate
        Of a certain bird (without a mate),
    A bird of another feather.

        "My friends," said the Owl, with a look most wise,
        "The Eagle is soaring too near the skies,
    In a way that is quite improper;
        Yet the world is praising her, so I'm told,
        And I think her actions have grown so bold
    That some of us ought to stop her."

        "I have heard it said," quoth Hawk, with a sigh,
        "That young lambs died at the glance of her eye,
    And I wholly scorn and despise her.
        This, and more, I am told they say,
        And I think that the only proper way
    Is never to recognize her."

        "I am quite convinced," said Crow, with a caw,
        "That the Eagle minds no moral law,
    She's a most unruly creature."
        "She's an ugly thing," piped Canary Bird;
        "Some call her handsome - it's so absurd -
    She hasn't a decent feature."

        Then the old Marsh-Hen went hopping about,
        She said she was sure - she hadn't a doubt -
    Of the truth of each bird's story:
        And she thought it a duty to stop her flight,
        To pull her down from her lofty height,
    And take the gilt from her glory.

        But, lo! from a peak on the mountain grand
        That looks out over the smiling land
    And over the mighty ocean,
        The Eagle is spreading her splendid wings -
        She rises, rises, and upward swings,
    With a slow, majestic motion.

        Up in the blue of God's own skies,
        With a cry of rapture, away she flies,
    Close to the Great Eternal:
        She sweeps the world with her piercing sight;
        Her soul is filled with the infinite
    And the joy of things supernal.

        Thus rise forever the chosen of God,
        The genius-crowned or the power-shod,
    Over the dust-world sailing;
        And back, like splinters blown by the winds,
        Must fall the missiles of silly minds,
    Useless and unavailing.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet, born on November 5, 1850, and died on October 30, 1919. She was known for her works expressing optimistic views and moral lessons. Her most famous book was 'Poems of Passion'. Her poem 'Solitude' contains the famous lines, 'Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone'. Over her career, Wilcox became popularly known as a 'people's poet'.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Superwoman

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Little Blue Hood

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Lais When Young

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Life And I.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Eagle And Dove.

In search of prey once raised his pinions
An eaglet;
A huntsman's arrow came, and reft
His right wing of all motive power.
Headlong he fell into a myrtle grove,
For three long days on anguish fed,
In torment writhed
Throughout three long, three weary nights;
And then was cured,
Thanks to all-healing Nature's
Soft, omnipresent balm.
He crept away from out the copse,
And stretch'd his wing alas!
Lost is all power of flight
He scarce can lift himself
From off the ground
To catch some mean, unworthy prey,
And rests, deep-sorrowing,
On the low rock beside the stream.
Up to the oak he looks,
Looks up to heaven,
While in his noble eye there gleams a tear.
Then, rustling through the myrtle boughs, behold,
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Suggested by a Mountain Eagle.

I gazed at the azure-hued mantle of heaven,
    The measureless depths of ethereal space;
I gazed at the clouds, so invisibly driven,
    And an eagle, which wheeled with symmetrical grace.

I gazed at that eagle, majestically wheeling,
    With dignity, born of the free mountain air;
I envied that bird, with an envious feeling
    Which springs from a heart that is shackled with care.

I envied that eagle, which bowed to no master,
    But soared at his will, through the ambient skies,
Defiant of danger, and scorning disaster,
    He screamed at the cliffs, which re-echoed his cries.

I envied that bird, on that fair summer morning,
    When nature lay decked with spontaneous art,
As he circled, with aspect defiant and scorning,
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The Eagle And The Owl.

^[1]

The eagle and the owl, resolved to cease
Their war, embraced in pledge of peace.
On faith of king, on faith of owl, they swore
That they would eat each other's chicks no more.
'But know you mine?' said Wisdom's bird.^[2]
'Not I, indeed,' the eagle cried.
'The worse for that,' the owl replied:
'I fear your oath's a useless word;
I fear that you, as king, will not
Consider duly who or what:
You kings and gods, of what's before ye,
Are apt to make one category.
Adieu, my young, if you should meet them!'
'Describe them, then, or let me greet them,
And, on my life, I will not eat them,'
The eagle said. The owl replied:
'My little ones, I say with pride,
For grace of form cannot be match'd, -
The prettiest birds that e'e...

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The Voice Of The Voiceless

I am the voice of the voiceless;
    Through me the dumb shall speak;
Till the deaf world's ear be made to hear
    The cry of the wordless weak.
From street, from cage, and from kennel,
    From jungle and stall, the wail
Of my tortured kin proclaims the sin
    Of the mighty against the frail.

I am a ray from the centre;
    And I will feed God's spark,
Till a great light glows in the night and shows
    The dark deeds done in the dark.
And full on the thoughtless sleeper
    Shall flash its glaring flame,
Till he wakens to see what crimes may be
    Cloaked under an honoured name.

The same Force formed the sparrow
    That fashioned man, the king;
The God of the Whole gave a spark of soul
    To furred and to feathered thing.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Domineering Eagle And The Inventive Bratling

O'er a small suburban borough
Once an eagle used to fly,
Making observations thorough
From his station in the sky,
And presenting the appearance
Of an animated V,
Like the gulls that lend coherence
Unto paintings of the sea.

Looking downward at a church in
This attractive little shire,
He beheld a smallish urchin
Shooting arrows at the spire;
In a spirit of derision,
"Look alive!" the eagle said;
And, with infinite precision,
Dropped a feather on his head.

Then the boy, annoyed distinctly
By the freedom of the bird,
Voiced his anger quite succinctly
In a single scathing word;
And he sat him on a barrow,
And he fashioned of this same
Eagle's feather such an arrow
As was worthy of the name.

Then he tried ...

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The Eagle.

Nature, what heart may here by thee,
    Most truly brave be styled?
The tender mother's it must be,
    When struggling for her child!

A Scottish tale, of serious truth,
    Will make the maxim clear,
I heard it from a shepherd youth,
    As nature's self sincere.

On Scotland's wildest, loneliest ground,
    The subject of my tale
Liv'd, where incumbent mountains frown'd
    High o'er her peaceful vale.

The heroine of nature, she
    No vain ambition knew,
Her bairns and goats she nurs'd with glee,
    To love and labour true.

Her hut within the valley stood,
    Where thin grass grew alone,
No shade had she from lofty wood.
    But much from towering stone.

For o'er her vale a mountain's crown,
    In lo...

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