Mockery.

        Why do we grudge our sweets so to the living
    Who, God knows, find at best too much of gall,
        And then with generous, open hands kneel, giving
    Unto the dead our all?

        Why do we pierce the warm hearts, sin or sorrow,
    With idle jests, or scorn, or cruel sneers,
        And when it cannot know, on some to-morrow,
    Speak of its woe through tears?

        What do the dead care, for the tender token -
    The love, the praise, the floral offerings?
        But palpitating, living hearts are broken
    For want of just these things.

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

Desolation.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

The Play

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

The Kettle

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

My Home

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.

From The Grave.

        When the first sere leaves of the year were falling,
    I heard, with a heart that was strangely thrilled,
        Out of the grave of a dead Past calling,
    A voice I fancied forever stilled.

        All through winter and spring and summer,
        Silence hung over that grave like a pall,
        But, borne on the breath of the last sad comer,
    I listen again to the old-time call.

        It is only a love of a by-gone season,
    A senseless folly that mocked at me
        A reckless passion that lacked all reason,
    So I killed it, and hid it where none could see.

        I smothered it first to stop its crying,
    Then stabbed it through with a good sharp blade,
        And cold and pallid I saw it lying,
    And deep - ah' ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A Burial

To-day I had a burial of my dead.
    There was no shroud, no coffin, and no pall,
No prayers were uttered and no tears were shed -
    I only turned a picture to the wall.

A picture that had hung within my room
    For years and years; a relic of my youth.
It kept the rose of love in constant bloom
    To see those eyes of earnestness and truth.

At hours wherein no other dared intrude,
    I had drawn comfort from its smiling grace.
Silent companion of my solitude,
    My soul held sweet communion with that face.

I lived again the dream so bright, so brief,
    Though wakened as we all are by some Fate;
This picture gave me infinite relief,
    And did not leave me wholly desolate.

To-day I saw an item, quite by chance,
    That r...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Love's Burial

See him quake and see him tremble,
    See him gasp for breath.
Nay, dear, he does not dissemble,
    This is really Death.
He is weak, and worn, and wasted,
    Bear him to his bier.
All there is of life he's tasted -
    He has lived a year.

He has passed his day of glory,
    All his blood is cold,
He is wrinkled, thin, and hoary,
    He is very old.
Just a leaf's life in the wild wood,
    Is a love's life, dear.
He has reached his second childhood
    When he's lived a year.

Long ago he lost his reason,
    Lost his trust and faith -
Better far in his first season
    Had he met with death.
Let us have no pomp or splendour,
    No vain pretence here.
As we bury, grave, yet tender,
    Love that's lived a year...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Desolation.

        I think that the bitterest sorrow or pain
    Of love unrequited, or cold death's woe,
    Is sweet compared to that hour when we know
        That some grand passion is on the wane;

        When we see that the glory and glow and grace
    Which lent a splendor to night and day
    Are surely fading, and showing the gray
        And dull groundwork of the commonplace;

        When fond expressions on dull ears fall,
    When the hands clasp calmly without one thrill,
    When we cannot muster by force of will
        The old emotions that came at call;

        When the dream has vanished we fain would keep,
    When the heart, like a watch, runs out of gear,
    And all the savor goes out of the year,
        Oh, then is the time - if we ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Living Lost.

Matron! the children of whose love,
Each to his grave, in youth hath passed,
And now the mould is heaped above
The dearest and the last!
Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener wo,
Of which the sufferers never speak,
Nor to the world's cold pity show
The tears that scald the cheek,
Wrung from their eyelids by the shame
And guilt of those they shrink to name,
Whom once they loved with cheerful will,
And love, though fallen and branded, still.

Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,
Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve;
And reverenced are the tears ye shed,
And honoured ye who grieve.
The praise of th...

William Cullen Bryant

A Wish

Great dignity ever attends great grief,
And silently walks beside it;
And I always know when I see such woe
That Invisible Helpers guide it.
And I know deep sorrow is like a tide,
It cannot ever be flowing;
The high-water mark in the night and the dark -
Then dawn, and the outward going.

But the people who pull at my heart-strings hard
Are the ones whom destiny hurries
Through commonplace ways to the end of their days,
And pesters with paltry worries.
The peddlers who trudge with a budget of wares
To the door that is slammed unkindly;
The vendor who stands with his shop in his hands
Where the hastening hosts pass blindly;

The woman who holds in her poor flat purse
The price of her rent-room only,
While her starved eye feeds on the comfort...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox