If I Were

If I were a raindrop, and you were a leaf,
    I would burst from the cloud above you,
And lie on your breast in a rapture of rest,
    And love you, love you, love you.

If I were a brown bee, and you were a rose,
    I would fly to you, love, nor miss you;
I would sip and sip from your nectared lip,
    And kiss you, kiss you, kiss you.

If I were a doe, dear, and you were a brook,
    Ah, what would I do then, think you?
I would kneel by the bank, in the grasses dank,
    And drink you, drink you, drink you.

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

What Gain?

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Dear Motherland Of France, Dedicated To The Men And Women Of France

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

What The Rain Saw

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

A Man's Last Love

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

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A Woman's Love

So vast the tide of love within me surging,
    It overflows like some stupendous sea,
    The confines of the Present and To-be;
And 'gainst the Past's high wall I feel it urging,
    As it would cry, "Thou, too, shalt yield to me!"

All other loves my supreme love embodies;
    I would be she on whose soft bosom nursed
    Thy clinging infant lips to quench their thirst;
She who trod close to hidden worlds where God is,
    That she might have, and hold, and see thee first.

I would be she who stirred the vague, fond fancies
    Of thy still childish heart; who through bright days
    Went sporting with thee in the old-time plays,
And caught the sunlight of thy boyish glances
    In half-forgotten and long-buried Mays.

Forth to the end, and back t...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What The Rain Saw

Winds of the summer time what are you saying,
    What are ye seeking, and what do you miss?
Locks like the thistledown floating and straying,
    Cheeks like the budding rose, tinted to kiss.

See ye yon mist rising up from the river?
    That is the spirit of yesterday's rain.
Go to it, fly to it, call to it, cry to it,
    What did ye see when ye fell on the plain?

Rosewood, and velvet, and pansies, and roses,
    Blossoms from loving hands tenderly cast.
Lids like the leaves of a lily that closes
    After its brief little day-life is past.

Beautiful hands on a beautiful bosom,
    Folded so quietly, folded in rest.
Mouth like the bud of a white-petalled blossom,
    Creased where the lips of an angel had pressed.

Lower, and lower, a...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

If I Could Only Weep

    If I could only weep,
I think sweet help with my salt tears would come,
To ease the cruel pain that is so dumb,
    And will not let me sleep.

    Down in my heart, down deep
A poisoned arrow burns.    It would fall out
And tears would wash the wound, I have no doubt,
    If I could only weep.

    Maybe my pulse would leap,
And bring one thrill back, of a vanished day,
Instead of throbbing in this dull, dead way,
    If I could only weep.

    O silent Fates who steep
Nectar or gall for us through all the years,
Take what thou wilt, but give me back my tears,
    And let me weep and weep.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Couleur De Rose

I want more lives in which to love
    This world so full of beauty,
I want more days to use the ways
    I know of doing duty;
I ask no greater joy than this
    (So much I am life's lover),
When I reach age to turn the page
    And read the story over.
    (O love, stay near!)

O rapturous promise of the Spring!
    O June fulfilling after!
If Autumns sigh, when Summers die,
    'Tis drowned in Winter's laughter.
O maiden dawns, O wifely noons,
    O siren sweet, sweet nights,
I'd want no heaven could earth be given
    Again with its delights
    (If love stayed near).

There are such glories for the eye,
    Such pleasures for the ear,
The senses reel with all they feel
    And see and taste and hear;
There are such ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Other

All alone with my heart to-night
    I sit, and wonder, and sigh.
What is she like, is she dark, or light,
This other woman who has the right
    To love him better than I?

We never have spoken her name, we two;
    There was no need somehow,
But she lives, and loves, and her heart is true;
From the very first this much I knew,
    So why should it hurt me now.

I fancy her tall, and I think her fair,
    Oh! fairer than I by half.
With sweet, calm eyes, and a wealth of hair,
And a heart as perfectly free from care
    As is her silvery laugh.

She loves rich jewels that flash in the light,
    And revels in costly lace,
And first in the morning, and last at night
She kisses one ring on her finger white;
    (How came those tears...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

An Afternoon

I am stirred by the dream of an afternoon
Of a perfect day - though it was not June;
The lilt of winds, and the droning tune
    That a busy city was humming.

And a bronze-brown head, and lips like wine
Leaning out through the window-vine
A-list for steps that were maybe mine -
    Eager steps that were coming.

I can see it all, as a dreamer may -
The tender smile on your lips that day,
And the glow on your cheek as we rode away
    Into the golden weather.

And a love-light shone in your eyes of brown -
I swear there did! - as we drove down
The crowded avenue out of the town,
    Through shadowy lanes, together:

Drove out into the sunset-skies
That glowed with wonderful crimson dyes;
And with soul and spirit, and heart and eye...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox