An Empty Crib

Beside a crib that holds a baby's stocking,
A tattered picture book, a broken toy,
A sleeping mother dreams that she is rocking
    Her fair-haired cherub boy.

Upon the cradle's side her light touch keeping,
She gently rocks it, crooning low a song;
And smiles to think her little one is sleeping,
    So peacefully and long.

Step light, breathe low, break not her rapturous dreaming,
Wake not the sleeper from her trance of joy,
For never more save in sweet slumber-seeming
    Will she watch o'er her boy.

God pity her when from her dream Elysian
She wakes to see the empty crib, and weep;
Knowing her joy was but a sleeper's vision,
    Tread lightly -let her sleep.

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

A Crushed Leaf

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Smiles

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

All Mad.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Interlude

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

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The Lullaby

When the long day leans to the twilight,
    When the Evening star climbs to the moon,
With a heart that is silently breaking,
    I sit in the gloaming and croon.
I croon a low song for my darling,
    My wee one, my baby, my own;
Who, cradled in rosewood and velvet,
    Sleeps out in the churchyard alone.

Alone with no arms to enfold her,
    Alone with no pillowing breast,
Alone with no hand on her cradle,
    To rock her to soundlier rest.
But each day in the hush of the twilight,
    Is silenced my broken heart's cry;
And I sit where I sat with my darling,
    And sing her the old lullaby.

Oh! the dreams that come back to me mocking,
    The sorrow that makes the days long;
As I sit in the twilight there rocking,
    And singing...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

After

After the end that is drawing near
    Comes, and I no more see your face
Worn with suffering, lying here,
    What shall I do with the empty place?

You are so weary, that if I could
    I would not hinder, I would not keep
The great Creator of all things good,
    From giving his own beloved sleep.

But over and over I turn this thought.
    After they bear you away to the tomb,
And banish the glasses, and move the cot,
    What shall I do with the empty room?

And when you are lying at rest, my own,
    Hidden away in the grass and flowers,
And I listen in vain for your sigh and moan,
    What shall I do with the silent hours?

O God!    O God! in the great To Be
    What canst Thou give me to compensate
For the terrible silenc...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Old Wooden Cradle

Good-bye to the cradle, the dear wooden cradle
    The rude hand of Progress has thrust it aside.
No more to its motion o'er sleep's fairy ocean,
    Our play-weary wayfarers peacefully glide.

No more by the rhythm of slow-moving rocker,
    Their sweet dreamy fancies are fostered and fed;
No more to low singing the cradle goes swinging -
    The child of this era is put into bed.

Good-bye to the cradle, the dear wooden cradle,
    It lent to the twilight a strange, subtle charm;
When bees left the clover, when play-time was over,
    How safe seemed this shelter from danger or harm.

How soft seemed the pillow, how distant the ceiling,
    How weird were the voices that whispered around,
What dreams would come flocking, as rocking and rocking,
   ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Little White Hearse

Somebody's baby was buried to-day -
    The empty white hearse from the grave rumbled back,
And the morning somehow seemed less smiling and gay
As I paused on the walk while it crossed on its way,
    And a shadow seemed drawn o'er the sun's golden tract.

Somebody's baby was laid out to rest,
    White as a snowdrop, and fair to behold,
And the soft little hands were crossed over the breast,
And those hands and the lips and the eyelids were pressed
    With kisses as hot as the eyelids were cold.

Somebody saw it go out of her sight,
    Under the coffin lid -out through the door;
Somebody finds only darkness and blight
All through the glory of summer-sun light;
    Somebody's baby will waken no more.

Somebody's sorrow is making me weep:
    I...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To Another Woman's Baby

I list your prattle, baby boy,
    And hear your pattering feet
With feelings more of pain than joy
    And thoughts of bitter-sweet.

While touching your soft hands in play
    Such passionate longings rise
For my wee boy who strayed away
    So soon to Paradise.

You win me with your infant art;
    But when our play is o'er,
The empty cradle in my heart
    Seems lonelier than before.

Sweet baby boy, you do not guess
    How oft mine eyes are dim,
Or that my lingering caress
    Is sometimes meant for HIM.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When Baby Souls Sail Out

When from our mortal vision
    Grown men and women go
To sail strange fields Elysian
    And know what spirits know,
I think of them as tourists,
    In some sun-gilded clime,
'Mong happy sights and dear delights
    We all shall find, in time.

But when a child goes yonder
    And leaves its mother here,
Its little feet must wander,
    It seems to me, in fear.
What paths of Eden beauty,
    What scenes of peace and rest,
Can bring content to one who went
    Forth from a mother's breast?

In palace gardens, lonely,
    A little child will roam
And weep for pleasures only
    Found in its humble home.
It is not won by splendour,
    Nor bought by costly toys;
To hide from harm on mother's arm
    Makes all its sum...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox