New And Old.

        I and new love, in all its living bloom,
    Sat vis-a-vis, while tender twilight hours
    Went softly by us, treading as on flowers.
        Then suddenly I saw within the room
        The old love, long since lying in its tomb.
    It dropped the cerecloth from its fleshless face
    And smiled on me, with a remembered grace
        That, like the noontide, lit the gloaming's gloom.

        Upon its shroud there hung the grave's green mould,
    About it hung the odor of the dead;
    Yet from its cavernous eyes such light was shed
        That all my life seemed gilded, as with gold;
    Unto the trembling new love '"Go," I said
        "I do not need thee, for I have the old."

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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Not Anchored

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The Punished

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 New Love

I thought my heart was death chilled,
    I thought its fires were cold;
But the new love, the new love,
    It warmeth like the old.

I thought its rooms were shadowed
    With the gloom of endless night;
But the new love, the new love,
    It fills them full of light.

I thought the chambers empty,
    And proclaimed it unto men;
But the new love, the new love,
    It peoples them again.

I thought its halls were silent,
    And hushed the whole day long;
But the new love, the new love,
    It fills them full of song.

Then here is to the new love,
    Let who will sing the old;
The new love, the new love,
    'Tis more than fame or gold.

For it gives us joy for sorrow,
    And it gives us warmth for cold;

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Old And New.

        Long have the poets vaunted, in their lays,
    Old times, old loves, old friendship, and old wine.
        Why should the old monopolize all praise?
    Then let the new claim mine.

        Give me strong new friends when the old prove weak
    Or fail me in my darkest hour of need;
        Why perish with the ship that springs a leak
    Or lean upon a reed?

        Give me new love, warm, palpitating, sweet,
    When all the grace and beauty leave the old;
        When like a rose it withers at my feet,
    Or like a hearth grows cold.

        Give me new times, bright with a prosperous cheer,
    In place of old, tear-blotted, burdened days;
        I hold a sunlit present far more dear,
    And worthy of my praise.

        ...

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

Reunited.

        Let us begin, dear love, where we left off;
    Tie up the broken threads of that old dream,
    And go on happy as before, and seem
        Lovers again, though all the world may scoff.

        Let us forget the graves which lie between
    Our parting and our meeting, and the tears
    That rusted out the gold-work of the years,
        The frosts that fell upon our gardens green.

        Let us forget the cold, malicious Fate
    Who made our loving hearts her idle toys,
    And once more revel in the old sweet joys
        Of happy love. Nay, it is not too late!

        Forget the deep-ploughed furrows in my brow;
    Forget the silver gleaming in my hair;
    Look only in my eyes! Oh! darling, there
        The old love shone no warme...

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

Old Age

The young see heaven - but to the old who wait
    The final call, the hills of youth arise
    More beautiful than shores of Paradise.
Beside a glowing and voracious grate
    A dozing couple dream of yesterday;
The islands of a vanished past appear,
Bringing forgotten names and faces near;
    While lost in mist, the present fades away.
The fragrant winds of tender memories blow
    Across the gardens of the "Used-to-be!"
    They smile into each other's eyes, and see
The bride and bridegroom of the long ago.
    And tremulous lips, pressed close to faded cheek
    Love's silent tale of deathless passion speak.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox