Love

Dreaming of love, the ardent mind of youth
    Conceives it one with passion's brief delights,
With keen desire and rapture.    But, in truth,
    These are but milestones to sublime heights
After the highways, swept by strong emotions,
    Where wild winds blow and blazing sun rays beat,
After the billows of tempestuous oceans,
    Fair mountain summits wait the lover's feet.

The path is narrow, but the view is wide,
    And beauteous the outlook towards the west
Happy are they who walk there side by side,
    Leaving below the valleys of unrest,
And on the radiant altitudes above
Know the serene intensity of love.

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

The Spur

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Three At The Opera

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

The Forecast

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Penalty.

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.

Love's Supremacy

As yon great Sun in his supreme condition
    Absorbs small worlds and makes them all his own,
So does my love absorb each vain ambition,
    Each outside purpose which my life has known.
Stars cannot shine so near that vast orb'd splendour;
    They are content to feed his flames of fire:
And so my heart is satisfied to render
    Its strength, its all, to meet thy strong desire.

As in a forest when dead leaves are falling
    From all save some perennial green tree,
So one by one I find all pleasures palling
    That are not linked with or enjoyed by thee.
And all the homage that the world may proffer,
    I take as perfumed oils or incense sweet,
And think of it as one thing more to offer,
    And sacrifice to Love, at thy dear feet.

I love myse...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Love's Way

Love gives us copious potions of delight,
    Of pain and ecstasy, and peace and care;
Love leads us upward, to the mountain height,
    And, like an angel, stands beside us there;
Then thrusts us, demon-like, in some abyss:
    Where, in the darkness of despair, we grope,
Till, suddenly, Love greets us with a kiss
    And guides us back to flowery fields of hope.

Love makes all wisdom seem but poorest folly,
    And yet the simplest mind with Love grows wise,
The gayest heart he teaches melancholy,
    Yet glorifies the erstwhile brooding eyes.
Love lives on change, and yet at change Love mocks,
    For Love's whole life is one great paradox.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

An Old Man To His Sleeping Young Bride

As when the old moon lighted by the tender
    And radiant crescent of the new is seen,
And for a moment's space suggests the splendor
    Of what in its full prime it once has been,
So on my waning years you cast the glory
    Of youth and pleasure, for a little hour;
And life again seems like an unread story,
    And joy and hope both stir me with their power.

Can blooming June be fond of bleak December?
    I dare not wait to hear my heart reply.
I will forget the question -and remember
    Alone the priceless feast spread for mine eye,
That radiant hair that flows across the pillows,
    Like shimmering sunbeams over drifts of snow;
Those heaving breasts, like undulating billows,
    Whose dangers or delights but Love can know.

That crimson mou...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Realisation

Hers was a lonely, shadowed lot;
Or so the unperceiving thought,
Who looked no deeper than her face,
Devoid of chiselled lines of grace -
No farther than her humble grate,
And wondered how she bore her fate.

Yet she was neither lone nor sad;
So much of love her spirit had,
She found an ever-flowing spring
Of happiness in everything.

So near to her was Nature's heart
It seemed a very living part
Of her own self; and bud and blade,
And heat and cold, and sun and shade,
And dawn and sunset, Spring and Fall,
Held raptures for her, one and all.

The year's four changing seasons brought
To her own door what thousands sought
In wandering ways and did not find -
Diversion and content of mind.

She loved the tasks that filled e...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Love's Mirage

Midway upon the route, he paused athirst
    And suddenly across the wastes of heat,
    He saw cool waters gleaming, and a sweet
Green oasis upon his vision burst.
A tender dream, long in his bosom nursed,
    Spread love's illusive verdure for his feet;
    The barren sands changed into golden wheat;
The way grew glad that late had seemed accursed.

She shone, the woman wonder, on his soul;
    The garden spot, for which men toil and wait;
    The house of rest, that is each heart's demand;
But when, at last, he reached the gleaming goal,
    He found, oh, cruel irony of fate,
    But desert sun upon the desert sand.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Love's Language.

    How does Love speak?
        In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek,
        And in the pallor that succeeds it; by
        The quivering lid of an averted eye -
        The smile that proves the patent to a sigh -
    Thus doth Love speak.

    How does Love speak?
        By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak
        Of bounding pulses that stand still and ache,
        While new emotions, like strange barges, make
        Along vein-channels their disturbing course;
        Still as the dawn, and with the dawn's swift force -
    Thus doth Love speak.

    How does Love speak?
        In the avoidance of that which we seek -
        The sudden silence and reserve when near -
        The eye that glistens with an unshed tear -
   ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox