The Coquette.

        Alone she sat with her accusing heart,
    That, like a restless comrade frightened sleep,
        And every thought that found her, left a dart
    That hurt her so, she could not even weep.

        Her heart that once had been a cup well filled
    With love's red wine, save for some drops of gall
        She knew was empty; though it had not spilled
    Its sweets for one, but wasted them on all.

        She stood upon the grave of her dead truth,
    And saw her soul's bright armor red with rust,
        And knew that all the riches of her youth
    Were Dead Sea apples, crumbling into dust.

        Love that had turned to bitter, biting scorn,
    Hearthstones despoiled, and homes made desolate,
        Made her cry out that she was ever born,
    To loathe her beauty and to curse her fate.

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

The World-Child

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Now I Lay Me

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

An East Wind

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

The Goal

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.

Alone In The House

I am all alone in the house to-night;
    They would not have gone away
Had they known of the terrible, bloodless fight
    I have held with my heart to-day.
With the old sweet love and the old fierce pain
    I have battled hour by hour;
But the fates have willed that the strife is vain.
Alone in the hour my thoughts have reign,
    And I yield myself to their power.

Yield myself to the old time charm
    Of a dream of vanished bliss,
The thrill of a voice, and the fold of an arm,
    And a red lip's lingering kiss.
It all comes back like a flowing tide;
    That brief, but beautiful day.
Though it oft is checked by the dam of pride,
Till the waters flow back to the other side,
    To-night it has broken away.

I gave you all that I had t...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Husks

She looked at her neighbour's house in the light of the waning day -
A shower of rice on the steps, and the shreds of a bride's bouquet.
And then she drew the shade, to shut out the growing gloom,
But she shut it into her heart instead.    (Was that a voice in the room?)

'My neighbour is sad,' she sighed, 'like the mother bird who sees
The last of her brood fly out of the nest to make its home in the trees' -
And then in a passion of tears - 'But, oh, to be sad like her:
Sad for a joy that has come and gone!'    (Did some one speak, or stir?)

She looked at her faded hands, all burdened with costly rings;
She looked on her widowed home, all burdened with priceless things.
She thought of the dead years gone, of the empty years ahead -
(Yes, something stirred and something sp...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Other

All alone with my heart to-night
    I sit, and wonder, and sigh.
What is she like, is she dark, or light,
This other woman who has the right
    To love him better than I?

We never have spoken her name, we two;
    There was no need somehow,
But she lives, and loves, and her heart is true;
From the very first this much I knew,
    So why should it hurt me now.

I fancy her tall, and I think her fair,
    Oh! fairer than I by half.
With sweet, calm eyes, and a wealth of hair,
And a heart as perfectly free from care
    As is her silvery laugh.

She loves rich jewels that flash in the light,
    And revels in costly lace,
And first in the morning, and last at night
She kisses one ring on her finger white;
    (How came those tears...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Worn Out

I saw a young heart in the grasp of pain;
    With bruised breast, and broken, bleeding wing
Shipwrecked on hopeless love's tempestuous main,
    Lay the poor tortured thing.

It pulsed with all the anguish of despair;
    It ached with all a fond heart's awful power;
Yet I, who stood unhurt above it there,
    Envied its lot that hour.

I, who have wasted all the sacred, deep
    Emotions of my soul in spendthrift fashion,
Until no sorrow now can make me weep -
    No joy stir me with passion.

I, who have scattered here and there the gold
    Of my heart's store, until I spent the whole;
Yet unto each so little gave to hold,
    That I enriched no soul.

I, who have sold the birthright of sweet tears,
    And no more feel a thrill in...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Divorced

Thinking of one thing all day long, at night
I fall asleep, brain weary and heart sore;
But only for a little while.    At three,
Sometimes at two o'clock, I wake and lie,
Staring out into darkness; while my thoughts
Begin the weary treadmill-toil again,
From that white marriage morning of our youth
Down to this dreadful hour.

    I see your face
Lit with the lovelight of the honeymoon;
I hear your voice, that lingered on my name
As if it loved each letter; and I feel
The clinging of your arms about my form,
Your kisses on my cheek - and long to break
The anguish of such memories with tears,
But cannot weep; the fountain has run dry.

We were so young, so happy, and so full
Of keen sweet joy of life.    I had no wish
Outside your pleasure;...

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