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.

        When the old deeds are threadbare and worn through,
    And all too narrow for the broadening soul,
        Give me the fine, firm texture of the new,
    Fair, beautiful, and whole!

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

A Waltz-Quadrille.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Why

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Lippo.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Does It Pay

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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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

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

Change.

        Changed? Yes, I will confess it - I have changed.
    I do not love in the old fond way.
        I am your friend still - time has not estranged
    One kindly feeling of that vanished day.

        But the bright glamour which made life a dream,
    The rapture of that time, its sweet content,
        Like visions of a sleeper's brain they seem -
    And yet I cannot tell you how they went.

        Why do you gaze with such accusing eyes
    Upon me, dear? Is it so very strange
        That hearts, like all things underneath God's skies
    Should sometimes feel the influence of change?

        The birds, the flowers, the foliage of the trees,
    The stars which seem so fixed and so sublime,
        Vast continents and the eternal seas -
...

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 Rhythm And Rhyme

They tell me new methods now govern the Muses,
    The modes of expression have changed with the times;
That low is the rank of the poet who uses
    The old-fashioned verse with intentional rhymes.
And quite out of date, too, is rhythmical metre;
    The critics declare it an insult to art.
But oh! the sweet swing of it, oh! the clear ring of it,
    Oh the great pulse of it, right from the heart,
        Art or no art.

I sat by the side of that old poet, Ocean,
    And counted the billows that broke on the rocks;
The tide lilted in with a rhythmical motion;
    The sea-gulls dipped downward in time-keeping flocks.
I watched while a giant wave gathered its forces,
    And then on the gray granite precipice burst;
And I knew as I counted, while other waves mo...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Year Outgrows The Spring.

        The year outgrows the spring it thought so sweet,
    And clasps the summer with a new delight,
        Yet wearied, leaves her languors and her heat
    When cool-browed autumn dawns upon his sight.

        The tree outgrows the bud's suggestive grace,
    And feels new pride in blossoms fully blown.
        But even this to deeper joy gives place
    When bending boughs 'neath blushing burdens groan.

        Life's rarest moments are derived from change.
    The heart outgrows old happiness, old grief,
        And suns itself in feelings new and strange;
    The most enduring pleasure is but brief.

        Our tastes, our needs, are never twice the same.
    Nothing contents us long, however dear.
        The spirit in us, like the grosser fr...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox