The Engine.

Into the gloom of the deep, dark night,
    With panting breath and a startled scream;
Swift as a bird in sudden flight
    Darts this creature of steel and steam.

Awful dangers are lurking nigh,
    Rocks and chasms are near the track,
But straight by the light of its great white eye
    It speeds through the shadows, dense and black.

Terrible thoughts and fierce desires
    Trouble its mad heart many an hour,
Where burn and smoulder the hidden fires,
    Coupled ever with might and power.

It hates, as a wild horse hates the rein,
    The narrow track by vale and hill;
And shrieks with a cry of startled pain,
    And longs to follow its own wild will.

Oh, what am I but an engine, shod
    With muscle and flesh, by the hand of God,
Speeding on through the dense, dark night,
    Guided alone by the soul's white light.

Often and often my mad heart tires,
    And hates its way with a bitter hate,
And longs to follow its own desires,
    And leave the end in the hand of fate.

O mighty engine of steel and steam;
    O human engine of blood and bone,
Follow the white light's certain beam -
    There lies safety and there alone.

The narrow track of fearless truth,
    Lit by the soul's great eye of light,
O passionate heart of restless youth,
    Alone will carry you through the night.

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

Individuality.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

You Never Can Tell

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Three Friends

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Foes.

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.

In The Night.

Sometimes at night, when I sit and write,
    I hear the strangest things, -
As my brain grows hot with burning thought,
    That struggles for form and wings,
I can hear the beat of my swift blood's feet,
    As it speeds with a rush and a whir
From heart to brain and back again,
    Like a race-horse under the spur.

With my soul's fine ear I listen and hear
    The tender Silence speak,
As it leans on the breast of Night to rest,
    And presses his dusky cheek.
And the darkness turns in its sleep, and yearns
    For something that is kin;
And I hear the hiss of a scorching kiss,
    As it folds and fondles Sin.

In its hurrying race through leagues of space,
    I can hear the Earth catch breath,
As it heaves and moans, and shudders and...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Night Express

Out through the hills of midnight,
Hurtling and thundering on,
The night express from the outer world
Speeds for the open of dawn.

Out of the past and gloom-wrack,
Out of the dim and yore,
Freighted as train or caravan
Was never freighted before;

Built when the Sphinx's query
Was new on the lips of peace;
Hurled through the aching and hollow years
Till time shall have release;

Stealing and swift as a shadow,
Sinuous, urging, and blind,
Unpent as a joy or the flight of a bird,
With oblivion behind;

Down to the morrow country
Into the unknown land!
And the Driver grips the throttle-bar;
Our lives are in his hand.

The sleeping hills awake;
A tremor, a dread, a roar;
The terror is flying, is come, is past...

Bliss Carman

Ad Finem.

        On the white throat of the' useless passion
    That scorched my soul with its burning breath
        I clutched my fingers in murderous fashion,
    And gathered them close in a grip of death;
        For why should I fan, or feed with fuel,
    A love that showed me but blank despair?
        So my hold was firm, and my grasp was cruel -
    I meant to strangle it then and there!

        I thought it was dead. But with no warning,
    It rose from its grave last night, and came
        And stood by my bed till the early morning,
    And over and over it spoke your name.
        Its throat was red where my hands had held it;
    It burned my brow with its scorching breath;
        And I said, the moment my eyes beheld it,
    "A love like this can kn...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Night

Oh! give me the night, the dark, dark night,
    The night with never a star.
When the stars are veiled and the moon has sailed
    Beyond the horizon's bar.
When thought grows weary of groping its way
    Through darkness dense and deep,
And buries its head in oblivion's bed,
    Wrapped warm in the mantle of sleep.

For I hate the night, the moon-white night,
    The night with a pallid face,
When a million eyes from the watchful skies
    Peers into each secret place.
For thought awakes and the old wound aches,
    And Sorrow she cannot rest,
But all night long walks to and fro
    Through the aisles of my troubled breast.

And Memory thinks it her royal hour
    When the heavens glitter and shine;
And she fills the cup of the past well ...

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

The Twelve-Forty-Five

(For Edward J. Wheeler)



Within the Jersey City shed
The engine coughs and shakes its head,
The smoke, a plume of red and white,
Waves madly in the face of night.
And now the grave incurious stars
Gleam on the groaning hurrying cars.
Against the kind and awful reign
Of darkness, this our angry train,
A noisy little rebel, pouts
Its brief defiance, flames and shouts --
And passes on, and leaves no trace.
For darkness holds its ancient place,
Serene and absolute, the king
Unchanged, of every living thing.
The houses lie obscure and still
In Rutherford and Carlton Hill.
Our lamps intensify the dark
Of slumbering Passaic Park.
And quiet holds the weary feet
That daily tramp through Prospect Street.
What though we clang and...

Alfred Joyce Kilmer