Heaven And Hell

While forced to dwell apart from thy dear face,
    Love, robed like sorrow, led me by the hand
    And taught my doubting heart to understand
That which has puzzled all the human race.
Full many a sage has questioned where in space
    Those counter worlds were? where the mystic strand
    That separates them?    I have found each land,
And Hell is vast, and Heaven a narrow space.

In the small compass of thy clasping arms,
    In reach and sight of thy dear lips and eyes,
    There, there for me the joy of Heaven lies.
Outside, lo! chaos, terrors' wild alarms,
And all the desolation fierce and fell
Of void and aching nothingness, makes Hell.

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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The Way

Between the finite and the infinite
The missing link of Love has left a void.
Supply the link, and earth with Heaven will join
In one continued chain of endless life.

Hell is wherever Love is not, and Heaven
Is Love's location.    No dogmatic creed,
No austere faith based on ignoble fear
Can lead thee into realms of joy and peace.
Unless the humblest creatures on the earth
Are bettered by thy loving sympathy
Think not to find a Paradise beyond.

There is no sudden entrance into Heaven.
Slow is the ascent by the path of Love.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

My Heaven

Unhoused in deserts of accepted thought,
    And lost in jungles of confusing creeds,
    My soul strayed, homeless, finding its own needs
Unsatisfied with what tradition taught.

The pros and cons, the little ifs and ands,
    The but and maybe, and the this and that,
    On which the churches thicken and grow fat,
I found but structures built on shifting sands.

And all their heavens were strange and far away,
    And all their hells were made of human hate;
    And since for death I did not care to wait,
A heaven I fashioned for myself one day.

Of happy thoughts I built it stone by stone,
    With joy of life I draped each spacious room,
    With love's great light I drove away all gloom,
And in the centre I made God a throne.

And this...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Land Between

Between the little Here and larger Yonder,
    There is a realm (or so one day I read)
Where faithful spirits love-enchained may wander,
    Till some remembering soul from earth has fled.
Then, reunited, they go forth afar,
From sphere to sphere, where wondrous angels are.

Not many spirits in that realm are waiting;
    Not many pause upon its shores to rest;
For only love, intense and unabating,
    Can hold them from the longer, higher quest.
And after grief has wept itself to sleep,
Few hearts on earth their vital memories keep.

Should I pass on, across the mystic border,
    Let thy love link me to that pallid land;
I would not seek the heavens of finer order
    Until thy barque had left this coarser strand.
How desolate such journeyings woul...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Delilah.

        In the midnight of darkness and terror,
    When I would grope nearer to God,
        With my back to a record of error
    And the highway of sin I have trod,
        There come to me shapes I would banish -
    The shapes of the deeds I have done;
        And I pray and I plead till they vanish -
    All vanish and leave me, save one.

        That one with a smile like the splendor
    Of the sun in the middle-day skies -
        That one with a spell that is tender -
    That one with a dream in her eyes -
        Cometh close, in her rare Southern beauty,
    Her languor, her indolent grace;
        And my soul turns its back on its duty,
    To live in the light of her face.

        She touches my cheek, and I quiver -
    I tremb...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Karma

I

We cannot choose our sorrows.    One there was
Who, reverent of soul, and strong with trust,
Cried, 'God, though Thou shouldst bow me to the dust,
Yet will I praise thy everlasting laws.
Beggared, my faith would never halt or pause,
But sing Thy glory, feasting on a crust.
Only one boon, one precious boon I must
Demand of Thee, O opulent great Cause.
Let Love stay with me, constant to the end,
Though fame pass by and poverty pursue.'
With freighted hold her life ship onward sailed;
The world gave wealth, and pleasure, and a friend,
Unmarred by envy, and whose heart was true.
But ere the sun reached midday, Love had failed.

II

Then from the depths, in bitterness she cried,
'Hell is on earth, and heaven is but a dream;
And human lif...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Here And Now

Here, in the heart of the world,
    Here, in the noise and the din,
Here, where our spirits were hurled
    To battle with sorrow and sin,
This is the place and the spot
    For knowledge of infinite things;
This is the kingdom where Thought
    Can conquer the prowess of kings.

Wait for no heavenly life,
    Seek for no temple alone;
Here, in the midst of the strife,
    Know what the sages have known.
See what the Perfect Ones saw -
    God in the depth of each soul,
God as the light and the law,
    God as beginning and goal.

Earth is one chamber of Heaven,
    Death is no grander than birth.
Joy in the life that was given,
    Strive for perfection on earth.
Here, in the turmoil and roar,
    Show what it is to be calm...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox