The Nameless

Unnumbered gods may unremembered die;
A thousand creeds may perish and pass by;
Yet do I lift mine eyes to ONE on high.

Unnamed be HE from whom creation came;
There is no word whereby to speak His name
But petty men have mouthed it into shame.

I lift mine eyes, and with a river's force
My love's full tide goes sweeping on its course
To that supreme and all-embracing Source.

Then back through all those thirsting channels roll
The mighty billows of the Over Soul.
And I am He, the portion and the Whole.

As little streams before the flood-tide flee,
As rivers vanish to become the sea,
The I exists no more, for I AM HE,

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

Burdened.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Memorial Day -1892

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

You Never Can Tell

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Go Back

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

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One By One

Little by little and one by one,
    Out of the ether, were worlds created;
Star and planet and sea and sun,
    All in the nebulous Nothing waited
Till the Nameless One Who has many a name
Called them to being and forth they came.

All things mighty and all things small,
    Stone and flower and sentient being,
Each is an answer to that one call,
    A part of Himself that His will is freeing -
Freeing to go on the long, long way
That winds back home at the end of the day.

Little by little does mortal man
    Build his castles for joy and glory,
And one by one time shatters each plan
    And lowers his palaces, story by story-
Story by story, till earth is just
A row of graves in the lowly dust.

One by one, whatever was called,

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The River

I am a river flowing from God's sea
Through devious ways. He mapped my course for me;
I cannot change it; mine alone the toil
To keep the waters free from grime and soil.
The winding river ends where it began;
And when my life has compassed its brief span
I must return to that mysterious source.
So let me gather daily on my course
The perfume from the blossoms as I pass,
Balm from the pines, and healing from the grass,
And carry down my current as I go
Not common stones but precious gems to show;
And tears (the holy water from sad eyes)
Back to God's sea, from which all rivers rise
Let me convey, not blood from wounded hearts,
Nor poison which the upas tree imparts.
When over flowery vales I leap with joy,
Let me not devastate them, nor destroy,
But ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The River

I am a river flowing from God's sea
Through devious ways.    He mapped my course for me;
I cannot change it; mine alone the toil
To keep the waters free from grime and soil.
The winding river ends where it began;
And when my life has compassed its brief span
I must return to that mysterious source.
So let me gather daily on my course
The perfume from the blossoms as I pass,
Balm from the pines, and healing from the grass,
And carry down my current as I go
Not common stones but precious gems to show;
And tears (the holy water from sad eyes)
Back to God's sea, from which all rivers rise,
Let me convey, not blood from wounded hearts,
Nor poison which the upas tree imparts.
When over flowery vales I leap with joy,
Let me not devastate them, nor destroy,
...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Life

I feel the great immensity of life.
All little aims slip from me, and I reach
My yearning soul toward the Infinite.

As when a mighty forest, whose green leaves
Have shut it in, and made it seem a bower
For lovers' secrets, or for children's sports,
Casts all its clustering foliage to the winds,
And lets the eye behold it, limitless,
And full of winding mysteries of ways:
So now with life that reaches out before,
And borders on the unexplained Beyond.

I see the stars above me, world on world:
I hear the awful language of all Space;
I feel the distant surging of great seas,
That hide the secrets of the Universe
In their eternal bosoms; and I know
That I am but an atom of the Whole.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ascension

I have been down in the darkest water -
    Deep, deep down where no light could pierce;
Alone with the things that are bent on slaughter,
    The mindless things that are cruel and fierce.
I have fought with fear in my wave-walled prison,
    And begged for the beautiful boon of death;
But out of the billows my soul has risen
    To glorify God with my latest breath.

There is no potion I have not tasted
    Of all the bitters in life's large store;
And never a drop of the gall was wasted
    That the lords of Karma saw fit to pour,
Though I cried as my Elder Brother before me,
    'Father in heaven, let pass this cup!'
And the only response from the still skies o'er me
    Was the brew held close for my lips to sup.

Yet I have grown strong on the ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Nothing Remains

Nothing remains of unrecorded ages
    That lie in the silent cemetery time;
Their wisdom may have shamed our wisest sages,
    Their glory may have been indeed sublime.
How weak do seem our strivings after power,
    How poor the grandest efforts of our brains,
If out of all we are, in one short hour
        Nothing remains.

Nothing remains but the Eternal Spaces,
    Time and decay uproot the forest trees.
Even the mighty mountains leave their places,
    And sink their haughty heads beneath strange seas
The great earth writhes in some convulsive spasms
    And turns the proudest cities into plains.
The level sea becomes a yawning chasm -
    Nothing remains.

Nothing remains but the Eternal Forces,
    The sad seas cease complaining and grow...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox