The Cure

You may talk of reformations, of the Economic Plan,
    That shall stem the Social Evil in its course;
But the Ancient Sin of nations, must be got at in THE MAN.
    If you want to cleanse a river, seek the source.

Ever since his first beginning, Man has had his way, in lust.
    He has never learned the law of Self-Control;
And the World condones his sinning, and the Doctors say he must,
    And the Churches shut their eyes, and take his toll.

And the lauded 'Lovely Mothers' send the son out into life
    With no knowledge-welded armour for the fight;
'He will make his way like others, through the Oat field, to the Wife';
    'He will somehow be led onward, to the light.'

Yes, his leaders, they shall find him.    On the highways at each turn,
    (Since you did not choose to counsel or to warn,)
They shall tempt him, then shall bind him; they shall blight, and they shall burn,
    Down to offspring and descendants yet unborn.

It can never end through preaching; it can never end through laws;
    This social sore, no punishment can heal.
It must be the mother's teaching of the purpose, and the cause,
    And God's glory, lying under sex appeal.

She must feel no fear to name it to the children it has brought;
    She must speak of it as sacred, and sublime;
She must beautify, not shame it, by her speech and by her thought;
    Till they listen, and respect it, for all time.

From the heart they rested under ere they saw the light of day,
    Must the daughters and the sons be taught this truth;
Till they think of it with wonder, as a holy thing alway;
    While love's wisdom guides them safely through their youth.

Oh, the world has made its devil, and the Mothers let it grow;
    And the Man has dragged their thoughts down to the earth.
There will be no Social Evil, when each waking mind shall know
    All the grandeur and the beauty hid in birth.

When each Mother sets the fashion to win confidence, and trust,
    And to teach the mighty lesson, Self-Control,
We can lift the great Sex passion from the darkness and the dust,
    And enshrine it on the altar of the soul.

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

Will

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Jenny Lind

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

The Christian's New Year Prayer.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Wherefore?

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 Silent Tragedy

The deepest tragedies of life are not
Put into books, or acted on the stage.
Nay, they are lived in silence, by tense hearts
In homes, among dull unperceiving kin,
And thoughtless friends, who make a whip of words
Wherewith to lash these hearts, and call it wit.

There is a tragedy lived everywhere
In Christian lands, by an increasing horde
Of women martyrs to our social laws.
Women whose hearts cry out for motherhood;
Women whose bosoms ache for little heads;
Women God meant for mothers, but whose lives
Have been restrained, restricted, and denied
Their natural channels, till at last they stand
Unmated and alone, by that sad sea
Whose slow receding tide returns no more.
Men meet great sorrows; but no man can grasp
The depth, and height, of such a gr...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A Son Speaks

Mother, sit down, for I have much to say
Anent this widespread ever-growing theme
Of woman and her virtues and her rights.

I left you for the large, loud world of men,
When I had lived one little score of years.
I judged all women by you, and my heart
Was filled with high esteem and reverence
For your angelic sex; and for the wives,
The sisters, daughters, mothers of my friends
I held but holy thoughts.    To fallen stars
(Of whom you told me in our last sweet talk,
Warning me of the dangers in my path)
I gave wide pity as you bade me to,
Saying their sins harked back to my base sex.

Now listen, mother mine:    Ten years have passed
Since that clean-minded and pure-bodied youth,
Thinking to write his name upon the stars,
Went from your presenc...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Lord, Speak Again

When God had formed the Universe, He thought
Of all the marvels therein to be wrought
And to His aid then Motherhood was brought.

'My lesser self, the feminine of Me,
She will go forth throughout all time,' quoth He,
'And make My world what I would have it be.

'For I am weary, having laboured so,
And for a cycle of repose would go
Into that silence which but God may know.

'Therefore I leave the rounding of My plan
To Motherhood; and that which I began
Let woman finish in perfecting man.

'She is the soil:    the human Mother Earth:
She is the sun, that calls the seed to earth.
She is the gardener, who knows its worth.

'From Me, all seed, of any kind must spring.
Divine the growth such seed and soil will bring.
For all is Me, a...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Little Girls

Whether you frolic with comrade boys,
Or sit at your studies, or play with toys,
Whatever your station, or place, or sphere,
For just one purpose God sent you here;
And always and ever, you are to me -
Dear little Mothers, of Men to be.

So would I guard you from all mean things;
From the dwarfing of wealth, and from poverty's stings.
And from silly mothers of fuss and show,
And from dissolute fathers whose aims are low,
I would take you, and shield you, and set you free,
Dear little Mothers, of Men to be.

And then were the wish of my heart fulfilled,
Around about you, the world should build
A wall of Wisdom, with Truth for its Tower,
Where mind and body would wax in power,
Till the tender twig was a splendid tree -
Dear little Mothers, of Men ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Cost

God finished woman in the twilight hour
And said, 'To-morrow thou shalt find thy place:
Man's complement, the mother of the race -
    With love the motive power -
    The one compelling power.'

All night she dreamed and wondered.    With the light
Her lover came - and then she understood
The purpose of her being.    Life was good
    And all the world seemed right -
    And nothing was, but right.

She had no wish for any wider sway:
By all the questions of the world unvexed,
Supremely loving and superbly sexed,
    She passed upon her way -
    Her feminine fair way.

But God neglected, when He fashioned man,
To fuse the molten splendour of his mind
With that sixth sense He gave to womankind.
    And so He marred His plan -
   ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What They Saw

Sad man, Sad man, tell me, pray,
What did you see to-day?

I saw the unloved and unhappy old, waiting for slow delinquent death to come;
Pale little children toiling for the rich, in rooms where sunlight is ashamed to go;
The awful almshouse, where the living dead rot slowly in their hideous open graves.
And there were shameful things.
Soldiers and forts, and industries of death, and devil-ships, and loud- winged devil-birds,
All bent on slaughter and destruction.    These and yet more shameful things mine eyes beheld:
Old men upon lascivious conquest bent, and young men living with no thought of God,
And half-clothed women puffing at a weed, aping the vices of the underworld,
Engrossed in shallow pleasures and intent on being barren wives.
These things I saw.
(How God must ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox