The Plough

If you listen you will hear, from east to west,
Growing sounds of discontent and deep unrest.
It is just the progress-driven plough of God,
Tearing up the well-worn custom-bounded sod;
Shaping out each old tradition-trodden track
Into furrows, fertile furrows, rich and black.
Oh, what harvests they will yield
When they widen to a field.

They will widen, they will broaden, day by day,
As the Progress-driven plough keeps on its way.
It will riddle all the ancient roads that lead
Into palaces of selfishness and greed;
It will tear away the almshouse and the slum
That the little homes and garden plots may come.
Yes, the gardens green and sweet
Shall replace the stony street.

Let the wise man hear the menace that is blent
In this ever-growing sound of discontent.
Let him hear the rising clamour of the race
That the few shall yield the many larger space.
For the crucial hour is coming when the soil
Must be given to, or taken back by Toil
Oh, that mighty plough of God;
Hear it breaking through the sod!

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 Old Wooden Cradle

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

In The Crowd

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

The Spirit Of Great Joan

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Regret And Remorse

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

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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 Ploughman

Anniversary Of The Berkshire Agricultural Society, October 4, 1849

Clear the brown path, to meet his coulter's gleam!
Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team,
With toil's bright dew-drops on his sunburnt brow,
The lord of earth, the hero of the plough!

First in the field before the reddening sun,
Last in the shadows when the day is done,
Line after line, along the bursting sod,
Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod;
Still, where he treads, the stubborn clods divide,
The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide;
Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves,
Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves;
Up the steep hillside, where the laboring train
Slants the long track that scores the level plain;
Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing cl...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Hymn Of The Republic

I have listened to the sighing of the burdened and the bound,
I have heard it change to crying, with a menace in the sound;
I have seen the money-getters pass unheeding on the way,
As they went to forge new fetters for the people day by day.

Then the voice of Labour thundered forth its purpose and its need,
And I marvelled, and I wondered, at the cold dull ear of greed;
For as chimes, in some great steeple, tell the passing of the hour,
So the voices of the people tell the death of purchased power.

All the gathered dust of ages, God is brushing from His book;
He is opening up its pages, and He bids His children look;
And in shock and conflagration, and in pestilence and strife,
He is speaking to the nations, of the brevity of life.

Mother Earth herself is shaken...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We Must Send Them Out To Play

Now much there is need of doing must not be done in haste;
    But slowly and with patience, as a jungle is changed to a town.
    But listen, my brothers, listen; it is not always so:
When a murderer's hand is lifted to kill, there is no time to waste;
    And the way to change his purpose is first to knock him down
    And teach him the law of kindness after you give him the blow.

The acorn you plant in the morning will not give shade at noon;
    And the thornless cactus must be bred by year on year of toil.
    But listen, my brothers, listen; it is not ever the way,
For the roots of the poison ivy plant you cannot pull too soon;
    If you would better your garden and make the most of your soil,
    Hurry and dig up the evil things and cast them out to-day.

The a...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The World Grows Better

Oh! the earth is full of sinning
    And of trouble and of woe,
But the devil makes an inning
    Every time we say it's so.
And the way to set him scowling,
    And to put him back a pace,
Is to stop this stupid growling,
    And to look things in the face.

If you glance at history's pages,
    In all lands and eras known,
You will find the buried ages
    Far more wicked than our own.
As you scan each word and letter.
    You will realise it more,
That the world to-day is better
    Than it ever was before.

There is much that needs amending
    In the present time, no doubt;
There is right that needs amending,
    There is wrong needs crushing out.
And we hear the groans and curses
    Of the poor who starve and die,

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Forecast

It may be that I dreamed a dream; it may be that I saw
The forecast of a time to come by some supernal law.

I seemed to dwell in this same world, and in this modern time;
Yet nowhere was there sight or sound of poverty or crime.
All strife had ceased; men were disarmed; and quiet Peace had made
A thousand avenues for toil, in place of War's grim trade.
From east to west, from north to south where highways smooth and broad
Tied State to State, the waste lands bloomed, like garden spots of God.
There were no beggars in the streets; there were no unemployed,
For each man owned his plot of ground, and laboured and enjoyed.
Sweet children grew like garden flowers; all strong and fair to see;
And when I marvelled at the sight, thus spake a Voice to me:
'All Motherhood is now an a...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox