In India's Dreamy Land

In India's land one listens aghast
To the people who scream and bawl;
For each caste yells at a lower caste,
And the Britisher yells at them all.

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

Smiles

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

A Picture.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Love's Supremacy

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

By-And-By.

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.

The Little Lady Of The Bullock Cart

Now is the time when India is gay
With wedding parties; and the radiant throngs
Seem like a scattered rainbow taking part
In human pleasures.    Dressed in bright array,
They fling upon the bride their wreaths of songs -
The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart.

Here is the temple ready for the rite:
The large-eyed bullocks halt; and waiting arms
Lift down the bride.    All India's curious art
Speaks in the gems with which she is bedight.
And in the robes which hide her sweet alarms -
The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart.

This is her day of days:    her splendid hour
When joy is hers, though love is all unknown.
It has not dawned upon her childish heart.
But human triumph, in a temporal power,
Has crowned her queen upon a one-day throne -
The Little...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Voices Of The People

Oh! I hear the people calling through the day time and the night time,
They are calling, they are crying for the coming of the right time.
It behooves you, men and women, it behooves you to be heeding,
For there lurks a note of menace underneath their plaintive pleading.

Let the land usurpers listen, let the greedy-hearted ponder,
On the meaning of the murmur, rising here and swelling yonder,
Swelling louder, waxing stronger, like a storm-fed stream that courses
Through the valleys, down abysses, growing, gaining with new forces.

Day by day the river widens, that great river of opinion,
And its torrent beats and plunges at the base of greed's dominion.
Though you dam it by oppression and fling golden bridges o'er it,
Yet the day and hour advances when in fright you'll flee...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Rangoon

Just a changing sea of colour
Surging up and flowing down;
And pagodas shining golden, night and noon;
And a sun-burst-tinted throng
Of young priests that move along
Under sun-burst-hued umbrellas through the town.
    That's Rangoon.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A Song Of Home

I am singing a song to the boys to-day,
A song of the home that is far away.
And I know that an echo the word is waking
In many a heart that is secretly aching,
Yes, almost breaking, thinking of Home, dear Home.
But thought, dear boys, is a carrier dove,
And it flies straight into the hearts you love.

You picture the days of your youthful joys,
The old home circle, the girls and boys
You knew in that wonderful world of pleasure,
When life danced on to a lilting measure;
Each scene you treasure, thinking of Home, dear Home.
And here is a thought that is sweet and true -
The ones you long for are longing for you.
You picture the day when the war is done,
The duty accomplished, the victory won,
And over the billows our ships go leaping,
Into our beauti...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

To India.

O India, India, O my lovely land -
    At whose sweet throat the greedy English snake,
With fangs and lips that suck and never slake,
    Clings, while around thee, band by stifling band,
The loathsome shape twists, chaining foot and hand -
    O from this death-swoon must thou never wake,
    From limbs enfranchised these foul fetters to shake,
And, proud among the nations, to rise and stand?
Nay, but thine eyes, thine eyes wherein there stays
    The patience of that august faith that scorns
The tinsel creed of Christ, dream still and gaze
Where, not within the timeless East and haze,
    The haunt of that wan moon with fading horns,
    There breaks the first of Himalayan morns!

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Thoughts On Leaving Japan

A changing medley of insistent sounds,
Like broken airs, played on a Samisen,
Pursues me, as the waves blot out the shore.
The trot of wooden heels; the warning cry
Of patient runners; laughter and strange words
Of children, children, children everywhere:
The clap of reverent hands, before some shrine;
And over all the haunting temple bells,
Waking, in silent chambers of the soul,
Dim memories of long-forgotten lives.

But oh! the sorrow of the undertone;
The wail of hopeless weeping in the dawn
From lips that smiled through gilded bars at night.

Brave little people, of large aims, you bow
Too often, and too low before the Past;
You sit too long in worship of the dead.
Yet have you risen, open eyed, to greet
The great material Present.    Now s...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox