The Call

In the banquet hall of Progress
God has bidden to a feast
All the women in the East.

Some have said 'We are not ready, -
    We must wait another day.'
Some, with voices clear and steady,
    'Lord, we hear, and we obey.'

Others, timid and uncertain,
    Step forth trembling in the light,
Many hide behind the curtain
    With their faces hid from sight.

In the banquet hall of Progress
All must gather soon or late,
And the patient Host will wait.

If to-day, or if to-morrow,
    If in gladness, or in woe,
If with pleasure, or with sorrow,
    All must answer, all must go.
They must go with unveiled faces,
    Clothed in virtue and in pride.
For the Host has set their places,
    And He will not he denied.

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 Dream

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

From The Grave.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

You Never Can Tell

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Sestina

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

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The Eternal Now

Time with his back against the mighty wall,
    Which hides from view all future joy and sorrow,
Hears, without answer, the impatient call
    Of puny man, to tell him of to-morrow.

Moral, be wise, and to the silence bow,
    These useless and unquiet ways forsaking;
Concern thyself with the Eternal Now -
    To-day hold all things, ready for thy taking.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Chosen

They stood before the Angel at the gate;
    The Angel asked:    'Why should you enter in?'
One said:    'On earth my place was high and great;'
    And one:    'I warned my fellow-men from sin;'
Another:    'I was teacher of the faith;
I scorned my life and lived in love with death.'

And one stood silent.    'Speak!' the Angel said;
    'What earthly deed has sent you here to-day?'
'Alas!    I did but follow where they led,'
    He answered sadly:    'I had lost my way -
So new the country, and so strange my flight;
I only sought for guidance and for light.'

'You have no passport?'    'None,' the answer came.
    'I loved the earth, tho' lowly was my lot.
I strove to keep my record free from blame,
    And make a heaven about my humble spot.
A nar...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Revealing Angels

Suddenly and without warning they came -
The Revealing Angels came.
Suddenly and simultaneously, through city streets,
Through quiet lanes and country roads they walked.
They walked crying:    'God has sent us to find
The vilest sinners of earth.
We are to bring them before Him, before the Lord of Life.'

Their voices were like bugles;
And then all war, all strife,
And all the noises of the world grew still;
And no one talked;
And no one toiled, but many strove to flee away.
Robbers and thieves, and those sunk in drunkenness and crime,
Men and women of evil repute,
And mothers with fatherless children in their arms, all strove to hide.
But the Revealing Angels passed them by,
Saying:    'Not you, not you.
Another day, when we shall come again
Un...

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Deceitful Calm

The winds are still; the sea lies all untroubled
    Beneath a cloudless sky; the morn is bright,
Yet, Lord, I feel my need of Thee is doubled;
    Come nearer to me in this blaze of light;
The night must fall, -the storm will burst at length.
    Oh! give me strength.

So well, so well, I know the treacherous seeming
    Of days like this; they are too heavenly fair.
Those waves that laugh like happy children dreaming,
    Are mighty forces brewing some despair
For thoughtless hearts, and ere the hour of need,
    Let mine take heed.

Joy cannot last; it must give place to sorrow
    As certainly as solar systems roll.
I would not wait till that time comes to borrow
    The strength prayer offers to a suffering soul.
Here in the sunlight -yet undimm...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Voices Of The People

Oh! I hear the people calling through the day time and the night time,
They are calling, they are crying for the coming of the right time.
It behooves you, men and women, it behooves you to be heeding,
For there lurks a note of menace underneath their plaintive pleading.

Let the land usurpers listen, let the greedy-hearted ponder,
On the meaning of the murmur, rising here and swelling yonder,
Swelling louder, waxing stronger, like a storm-fed stream that courses
Through the valleys, down abysses, growing, gaining with new forces.

Day by day the river widens, that great river of opinion,
And its torrent beats and plunges at the base of greed's dominion.
Though you dam it by oppression and fling golden bridges o'er it,
Yet the day and hour advances when in fright you'll flee...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Tides

Oh, vain is the stern protesting
    Of winds, when the tide runs high;
And vainly the deep-sea waters
    Call out, as the waves speed by;
For, deaf to the claim of the ocean,
    To the threat of the loud winds dumb,
Past reef and bar, to shores afar,
    They rush when the hour is come.

Vainly the tempest thunders,
    Of unsexed waves that roam,
Away from the mid-sea calmness,
    Where Nature made their home.
For the voice of the great Moon-Mother,
    Has spoken and said, 'Be free.'
And the tide must go to the strong full flow,
    In the time of the perigee.

So vain is the cry of the masters,
    And vain the plea of the hearth;
As the ranks of the strange New Woman
    Go sweeping across the earth.
They have come from ha...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox