The Blasphemy Of Guns

There must be lonely moments when God feels
The need of prayer -
Such lonely moments, knowing not anywhere,
In any spot or place,
In all the far recesses of vast space,
Dwells any one to whom His prayers may rise,
And then, methinks - so urgent is His need -
    God bids His prayers descend.
He that has ears to hear, let him take heed,
    For much God's prayers portend.

God flings His solar system forth to be
    Finished by beings who befit each sphere.
Not ours to pry the secrets out of Mars;
    Our work lies here.
To star-folk leave the stars.
There must be many worlds that give God care:
    Young worlds that glow and burn,
Old worlds that freeze and fade.
    This world is man's concern.
Methinks God must be very much dismayed,
    Seeing the use we make of earth to-day,
    While loud we pray.

Last night, in sleep, beyond the earth's small zone,
Adventurously my spirit went alone,
Past lesser hells and heavens, where souls may pause
To learn the meaning of death's larger laws,
Past astral shapes and bodies of desire,
Past angels and archangels, high and higher,
Until the pinnacles of space it trod,
Then, awestruck, paused, hearing the voice of God.

'Mortals of earth, for whom I shaped a sphere
(So spake the Voice), 'there rises to Mine ear
Eternal praises and eternal pleas.
Now, after centuries, I tire of these.
Have ye no knowledge of the Maker's needs,
Ye who ask favours and who praise by creeds?

Why has it not sufficed
That unto this small earth I sent great Christ,
Divine expression of the mortal man,
To aid my plan?

'Why ask for more when all has been refused?
Why praise My name Who hourly am abused?
Why seek for Me or heaven, when in you dwells
Hate's lurid hells?

'Persistent praises and persuasive pleas -
I tire, I tire of these;
But I, the Maker of a billion suns,
Ask men to stop the blasphemy of guns.'
This is God's prayer.

(There must be many worlds that give God care.)

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

All Mad

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Insight

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

No Song

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Ambition's Trail

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.

Arrow And Bow

It is easy to stand in the pulpit, or in the closet to kneel,
    And say:    'God do this; God do that! -
Make the world better; relieve the sorrows of man; for the sake of
Thy Son,
Oh, forgive all sin!'    Then, having planned out God's work, to feel
    Our duty is done.
It is easy to be religious this way -
Easy to pray.

It is harder to stand on the highway, or walk in the crowded mart;
    And say:    'I am He.    I am He.
'Mine the world-burden; mine the sorrows of men; mine the Christ-work
'To forgive my brother's sin,' and then to live the Christ-part and never to shirk.
    It is hard for you and me
To be religious this way,
Day after day.

But God is no longer in heaven; we drove Him out with our prayers,
Drove Him out with our sermons and...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Crimes Of Peace

Musing upon the tragedies of earth,
Of each new horror which each hour gives birth,
Of sins that scar and cruelties that blight
Life's little season, meant for man's delight,
Methought those monstrous and repellent crimes
Which hate engenders in war-heated times,
To God's great heart bring not so much despair
As other sins which flourish everywhere
And in all times - bold sins, bare-faced and proud,
Unchecked by college, and by Church allowed,
Lifting their lusty heads like ugly weeds
Above wise precepts and religious creeds,
And growing rank in prosperous days of peace.
Think you the evils of this world would cease
With war's cessation?
    If God's eyes know tears,
Methinks He weeps more for the wasted years
And the lost meaning of this earthly life -

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Unanswered Prayers

Like some schoolmaster, kind in being stern,
Who hears the children crying o'er their slates
And calling, "Help me, master!" yet helps not,
Since in his silence and refusal lies
Their self-development, so God abides
Unheeding many prayers.    He is not deaf
To any cry sent up from earnest hearts;
He hears and strengthens when He must deny.
He sees us weeping over life's hard sums;
But should He give the key and dry our tears,
What would it profit us when school were done
And not one lesson mastered?

    What a world
Were this if all our prayers were answered.    Not
In famed Pandora's box were such vast ills
As lie in human hearts.    Should our desires,
Voiced one by one in prayer, ascend to God
And come back as events shaped to our wish,
What...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Unanswered Prayers

Like some school master, kind in being stern,
Who hears the children crying o'er their slates
And calling, "Help me master!" yet helps not,
Since in his silence and refusal lies
Their self-development, so God abides
Unheeding many prayers. He is not deaf
To any cry sent up from earnest hearts,
He hears and strengthens when He must deny.
He sees us weeping over life's hard sums
But should He give the key and dry our tears
What would it profit us when school were done
And not one lesson mastered?

        What a world
Were this if all our prayers were answered. Not
In famed Pandora's box were such vast ills
As lie in human hearts. Should our desires
Voiced one by one in prayer ascend to God
And come back as events shaped to our wish
What chaos wou...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Voice Of The Voiceless

I am the voice of the voiceless;
    Through me the dumb shall speak;
Till the deaf world's ear be made to hear
    The cry of the wordless weak.
From street, from cage, and from kennel,
    From jungle and stall, the wail
Of my tortured kin proclaims the sin
    Of the mighty against the frail.

I am a ray from the centre;
    And I will feed God's spark,
Till a great light glows in the night and shows
    The dark deeds done in the dark.
And full on the thoughtless sleeper
    Shall flash its glaring flame,
Till he wakens to see what crimes may be
    Cloaked under an honoured name.

The same Force formed the sparrow
    That fashioned man, the king;
The God of the Whole gave a spark of soul
    To furred and to feathered thing.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

God Rules Alway

Into the world's most high and holy places
    Men carry selfishness, and graft and greed.
The air is rent with warring of the races;
    Loud Dogmas drown a brother's cry of need.
The Fleet-of-Creeds, upon Time's ocean lurches;
    And there is mutiny upon her decks;
And in the light of temples, and of churches,
    Against life's shores drift wrecks and derelicts.
    (God rules, God rules alway.)

Right in the shadow of the lofty steeple,
    Which crowns some costly edifice of faith,
Behold the throngs of hungry, unhoused people;
    The 'Bread Line,' flanked by charity and death.
See yonder Churchman, opulently doing
    Unnumbered deeds, which gladden and resound;
The while his thrifty tenant is pursuing
    The white slave trade on sacred, untaxed ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox