Last Love

The first flower of the spring is not so fair
Or bright as one the ripe midsummer brings.
The first faint note the forest warbler sings
Is not as rich with feeling, or so rare
As when, full master of his art, the air
Drowns in the liquid sea of song he flings
Like silver spray from beak, and breast, and wings.
The artist's earliest effort, wrought with care,
The bard's first ballad, written in his tears,
Set by his later toil, seems poor and tame,
And into nothing dwindles at the test.
So with the passions of maturer years.
Let those who will demand the first fond flame,
Give me the heart's LAST LOVE, for that is best.

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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Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

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Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

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A Man's Last Love

Like the tenth wave, that offers to the shore
Accumulated opulence and force,
So does my heart, which thought it loved of yore,
    Carry increasing passion down the course
Of time to proffer thee.
        Oh! not the faint
    First ripple of the sea should be its pride,
But the great climax of its unrestraint,
    Which culminates in one commanding tide.

The lesser billows of each crude emotion
    Break on life's strand, recede, and then unite
With love's large sea; and to some late devotion
    Unrecognised, they bring their lost delight.
So all the vanished fancies of my past
Live yet in this one passion, grand and vast.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Midsummer.

After the May time, and after the June time
    Rare with blossoms and perfumes sweet,
Cometh the round world's royal noon time,
    The red midsummer of blazing heat.
When the sun, like an eye that never closes,
    Bends on the earth its fervid gaze,
And the winds are still, and the crimson roses
    Droop and wither and die in its rays.

Unto my heart has come that season,
    O my lady, my worshiped one,
When over the stars of Pride and Reason
    Sails Love's cloudless, noonday sun.
Like a great red ball in my bosom burning
    With fires that nothing can quench or tame.
It glows till my heart itself seems turning
    Into a liquid lake of flame.

The hopes half shy, and the sighs all tender,
    The dreams and fears of an earlier day,

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Midsummer

After the May time, and after the June time,
    Rare with blossoms and perfumes sweet,
Cometh the round world's royal noon time,
    The red midsummer of blazing heat.
When the sun, like an eye that never closes,
    Bends on the earth its fervid gaze,
And the winds are still, and the crimson roses
    Droop and wither and die in its rays.

Unto my heart has come that season,
    O my lady, my worshipped one,
When over the stars of Pride and Reason
    Sails Love's cloudless, noonday sun.
Like a great red ball in my bosom burning
    With fires that nothing can quench or tame.
It glows till my heart itself seems turning
    Into a liquid lake of flame.

The hopes half shy, and the sighs all tender,
    The dreams and fears of an earlier day,

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Love And The Seasons

SPRING

A sudden softness in the wind;
    A glint of song, a-wing;
A fragrant sound that trails behind,
    And joy in everything.

A sudden flush upon the cheek,
    The teardrop quick to start;
A hope too delicate to speak,
    And heaven within the heart.

SUMMER

A riotous dawn and the sea's great wonder;
    The red, red heart of a rose uncurled;
And beauty tearing her veil asunder,
    In sight of a swooning world.

A call of the soul, and the senses blended;
    The Springtime lost in the glow of the sun,
And two lives rushing, as God intended,
    To meet and mingle as one.

AUTUMN

The world is out in gala dress;
    And yet it is not gay.
Its splendour hides a loneliness
    For someth...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A Maiden To Her Mirror

He said he loved me! Then he called my hair
    Silk threads wherewith sly Cupid strings his bow,
    My cheek a rose leaf fallen on new snow;
And swore my round, full throat would bring despair
To Venus or to Psyche.

    Time and care
    Will fade these locks; the merry god, I trow,
    Uses no grizzled cords upon his bow.
How will it be when I, no longer fair,
    Plead for his kiss with cheeks whence long ago
The early snowflakes melted quite away,
The rose leaf died -and in whose sallow clay
    Lie the deep sunken tracks of life's gaunt crow?

When this full throat shall wattle fold on fold,
    Like some ripe peach left drying on a wall,
    Or like a spent accordion, when all
Its music has exhaled -will love grow cold?

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

An Old Bouquet

I opened a long closed drawer to-day,
And among the souvenirs stored away
Were the faded leaves of an old bouquet.

Those faded leaves were as white as snow,
With a background of green, to make them show,
When you gave them to me long years ago.

They carried me back in a flash of light
To a perfumed, perfect summer night,
And a rider who came on a steed of white.

I can see it all -how you rode down
Like a knight of old, from the dusty town,
With a passionate glow in your eyes of brown.

Again I stand by the garden gate,
While the golden sun slips low, and wait
And watch your coming, my love, my fate.

Young and handsome and debonair
You leap to my side in the garden there,
And I take your flowers, and call them fair.

...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox