Duty's Path

Out from the harbour of youth's bay
    There leads the path of pleasure;
With eager steps we walk that way
    To brim joy's largest measure.
But when with morn's departing beam
    Goes youth's last precious minute,
We sigh "'Twas but a fevered dream -
    There's nothing in it."

Then on our vision dawns afar
    The goal of glory, gleaming
Like some great radiant solar star,
    And sets us longing, dreaming.
Forgetting all things left behind,
    We strain each nerve to win it,
But when 'tis ours -alas! we find
    There's nothing in it.

We turn our sad, reluctant gaze
    Upon the path of duty;
Its barren, uninviting ways
    Are void of bloom and beauty.
Yet in that road, though dark and cold,
    It seems as we begin it,
As we press on -lo! we behold
    There's Heaven in it.

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

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English

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Retrospection

I look down the lengthening distance
    Far back to youth's valley of hope.
How strange seemed the ways of existence,
    How infinite life and its scope!

What dreams, what ambitions came thronging
    To people a world of my own!
How the heart in my bosom was longing,
    For pleasures and places unknown.

But the hill-tops of pleasure and beauty
    Were covered with mist at the dawn;
And only the rugged road Duty
    Shone clear, as my feet wandered on.

I loved not the path and its leading,
    I hated the rocks and the dust;
But a Voice from the Silence was pleading,
    It spoke but one syllable - "Trust."

I saw, as the morning grew older,
    The fair flowered hills of delight;
And the feet of my comrades grew bolder,

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Sestina

I wandered o'er the vast green plains of youth,
And searched for Pleasure.    On a distant height
Fame's silhouette stood sharp against the skies.
Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway
I caught the glimmer of a golden goal,
While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love.

Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed at Love
With all the haughty insolence of youth,
As past her bower I strode to seek my goal.
"Now will I climb to glory's dizzy height,"
I said, "for there above the common way
Doth pleasure dwell companioned by the skies."

But when I reached that summit near the skies,
So far from man I seemed, so far from Love -
"Not here," I cried, "doth Pleasure find her way."
Seen from the distant borderland of youth,
Fame smiles upon us from he...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Sestina

I wandered o'er the vast green plains of youth,
And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height
Fame's silhouette stood sharp against the skies.
Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad high-way
I caught the glimmer of a golden goal,
While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love.

Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed at Love,
With all the haughty insolence of youth,
As past her bower I strode to seek my goal.
"Now will I climb to glory's dizzy height,"
I said, "for there above the common way
Doth pleasure dwell companioned by the skies."

But when I reached that summit near the skies,
So far from man I seemed, so far from Love -
"Not here," I cried, "doth Pleasure find her way,"
Seen from the distant borderland of youth.
Fame smiles upon us from her...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Life

On a bleak, bald hill with a dull world under,
    The dreary world of the Commonplace,
I have stood when the whole world seemed a blunder
    Of dotard Time, in an aimless race.
With worry about me and want before me -
    Yet deep in my soul was a rapture spring
That made me cry to the grey sky o'er me:
    'Oh, I know this life is a goodly thing!'

I have given sweet years to a thankless duty
    While cold and starving, though clothed and fed,
For a young heart's hunger for joy and beauty
    Is harder to bear than the need of bread.
I have watched the wane of a sodden season,
    Which let hope wither, and made care thrive,
And through it all, without earthly reason,
    I have thrilled with the glory of being alive.

And now I stand by the grea...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Universal Route

As we journey along, with a laugh and a song,
    We see, on youth's flower-decked slope,
Like a beacon of light, shining fair on the sight,
    The beautiful Station of Hope.

But the wheels of old Time roll along as we climb,
    And our youth speeds away on the years;
And with hearts that are numb with life's sorrows we come
    To the mist-covered Station of Tears.

Still onward we pass, where the milestones, alas!
    Are the tombs of our dead, to the West,
Where glitters and gleams, in the dying sunbeams,
    The sweet, silent Station of Rest.

All rest is but change, and no grave can estrange
    The soul from its Parent above;
And, scorning the rod, it soars back to its God,
    To the limitless City of Love.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Universal Route

As we journey along, with a laugh and a song,
    We see, on youth's flower-decked slope,
Like a beacon of light, shining fair on the sight,
    The beautiful Station of Hope.

But the wheels of old Time roll along as we climb,
    And our youth speeds away on the years;
And with hearts that are numb with life's sorrows we come
    To the mist-covered Station of Tears.

Still onward we pass, where the milestones, alas!
    Are the tombs of our dead, to the West,
Where glitters and gleams, in the dying sunbeams,
    The sweet, silent Station of Rest.

All rest is but change, and no grave can estrange
    The soul from its Parent above;
And, scorning the rod, it soars back to its God,
    To the limitless City of Love.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox