A Vision

My soul beheld a vision of the Master:
    Methought He stood with grieved and questioning eyes,
Where Freedom drove its chariot to disaster
    And toilers heard, unheeding, toilers' cries.
Where man withheld God's bounties from his neighbour,
    And fertile fields were sterilised by greed;
Where Labour's hand was lifted against labour,
    And suffering serfs to despots turned when freed.

Majestic rose tall steeple after steeple;
    Imperious bells called worshippers to prayer;
But as they passed, the faces of the people
    Were marred by envy, anger and despair.
'Christ the Redeemer of the world has risen,
    Peace and good will,' so rang the major strain;
But forth from sweat-shops, tenement and prison
    Wailed minor protests, redolent with pain.

Methought about the Master, all unseeing,
    Fought desperate hosts of striking clan with clan,
Their primal purpose, meant for labour's freeing,
    Sunk in vindictive hate of man for man.
Pretentious Wealth, in unearned robes of beauty,
    Flung Want a pittance from her bulging purse,
While ill-paid Toil went on dull rounds of duty,
    Hell in her heart, and on her lips a curse.

Then spoke the Christ (so wondrous was my vision)
    (Deep, deep, His voice, with sorrow's cadence fraught):
'This world to-day would be a realm elysian
    Had my disciples lived the love I taught.
Un-Christlike is the Christian creed men fashion
    Who kneel to worship, and who rise to slay.
Profane pretenders of my holy Passion,
    Ye nail Me newly to the cross each day.'

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

Grief

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

America Will Not Turn Back' Woodrow Wilson

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

The Play

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Music In The Flat

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.

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 th...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Radiant Christ

I

Arise, O master artist of the age,
And paint the picture which at once shall be
Immortal art and bless'd prophecy.
The bruised vision of the world assuage;
To earth's dark book add one illumined page,
So scintillant with truth, that all who see
Shall break from superstition and stand free.
Now let this wondrous work thy hand engage.
The mortal sorrow of the Nazarene,
Too long has been faith's symbol and its sign;
Too long a dying Saviour has sufficed.
Give us the glowing emblem which shall mean
Mankind awakened to the Self Divine;
The living emblem of the Radiant Christ.

II

Too long the crucifix on Calvary's height
Has cast its shadow on the human heart.
Let now Religion's great co-worker Art,
Limn on the background of depart...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Crimes Of Peace

Musing upon the tragedies of earth,
Of each new horror which each hour gives birth,
Of sins that scar and cruelties that blight
Life's little season, meant for man's delight,
Methought those monstrous and repellent crimes
Which hate engenders in war-heated times,
To God's great heart bring not so much despair
As other sins which flourish everywhere
And in all times - bold sins, bare-faced and proud,
Unchecked by college, and by Church allowed,
Lifting their lusty heads like ugly weeds
Above wise precepts and religious creeds,
And growing rank in prosperous days of peace.
Think you the evils of this world would cease
With war's cessation?
    If God's eyes know tears,
Methinks He weeps more for the wasted years
And the lost meaning of this earthly life -

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Message

I have not the gift of vision,
    I have not the psychic ear,
And the realms that are called Elysian
    I neither see nor hear;
Yet oft when the shadows darken
    And the daylight hides its face,
The soul of me seems to hearken
    For the truths that speak through space.

They speak to me not through reason,
    They speak to me not by word;
Yet my soul would be guilty of treason
    If it did not say it had heard.
For Space has a message compelling
    To give to the ear of Earth;
And the things which the Silence is telling
    In the bosom of God have birth.

Now this is the truth as I hear it -
    That ever through good or ill,
The will of the Ruling Spirit
    Is moving and ruling still.
In the clutch of the blood-red ter...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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 Vision Of Echard

The Benedictine Echard
Sat by the wayside well,
Where Marsberg sees the bridal
Of the Sarre and the Moselle.

Fair with its sloping vineyards
And tawny chestnut bloom,
The happy vale Ausonius sunk
For holy Treves made room.

On the shrine Helena builded
To keep the Christ coat well,
On minster tower and kloster cross,
The westering sunshine fell.

There, where the rock-hewn circles
Oerlooked the Romans game,
The veil of sleep fell on him,
And his thought a dream became.

He felt the heart of silence
Throb with a soundless word,
And by the inward ear alone
A spirits voice he heard.

And the spoken word seemed written
On air and wave and sod,
And the bending walls of sapphire
Blazed with the thought ...

John Greenleaf Whittier