Turquoise

A baby went to heaven while it slept,
    And, waking, missed its mother's arms, and wept.
Those angel tear-drops, falling earthward through
    God's azure skies, into the turquoise grew.

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

What Is Right Living?

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

The Little Lady Of The Bullock Cart

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

The Speech Of Silence.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

See?

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.

An Empty Crib

Beside a crib that holds a baby's stocking,
A tattered picture book, a broken toy,
A sleeping mother dreams that she is rocking
    Her fair-haired cherub boy.

Upon the cradle's side her light touch keeping,
She gently rocks it, crooning low a song;
And smiles to think her little one is sleeping,
    So peacefully and long.

Step light, breathe low, break not her rapturous dreaming,
Wake not the sleeper from her trance of joy,
For never more save in sweet slumber-seeming
    Will she watch o'er her boy.

God pity her when from her dream Elysian
She wakes to see the empty crib, and weep;
Knowing her joy was but a sleeper's vision,
    Tread lightly -let her sleep.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Little White Hearse

Somebody's baby was buried to-day -
    The empty white hearse from the grave rumbled back,
And the morning somehow seemed less smiling and gay
As I paused on the walk while it crossed on its way,
    And a shadow seemed drawn o'er the sun's golden tract.

Somebody's baby was laid out to rest,
    White as a snowdrop, and fair to behold,
And the soft little hands were crossed over the breast,
And those hands and the lips and the eyelids were pressed
    With kisses as hot as the eyelids were cold.

Somebody saw it go out of her sight,
    Under the coffin lid -out through the door;
Somebody finds only darkness and blight
All through the glory of summer-sun light;
    Somebody's baby will waken no more.

Somebody's sorrow is making me weep:
    I...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When Baby Souls Sail Out

When from our mortal vision
    Grown men and women go
To sail strange fields Elysian
    And know what spirits know,
I think of them as tourists,
    In some sun-gilded clime,
'Mong happy sights and dear delights
    We all shall find, in time.

But when a child goes yonder
    And leaves its mother here,
Its little feet must wander,
    It seems to me, in fear.
What paths of Eden beauty,
    What scenes of peace and rest,
Can bring content to one who went
    Forth from a mother's breast?

In palace gardens, lonely,
    A little child will roam
And weep for pleasures only
    Found in its humble home.
It is not won by splendour,
    Nor bought by costly toys;
To hide from harm on mother's arm
    Makes all its sum...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Lullaby

When the long day leans to the twilight,
    When the Evening star climbs to the moon,
With a heart that is silently breaking,
    I sit in the gloaming and croon.
I croon a low song for my darling,
    My wee one, my baby, my own;
Who, cradled in rosewood and velvet,
    Sleeps out in the churchyard alone.

Alone with no arms to enfold her,
    Alone with no pillowing breast,
Alone with no hand on her cradle,
    To rock her to soundlier rest.
But each day in the hush of the twilight,
    Is silenced my broken heart's cry;
And I sit where I sat with my darling,
    And sing her the old lullaby.

Oh! the dreams that come back to me mocking,
    The sorrow that makes the days long;
As I sit in the twilight there rocking,
    And singing...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Guerdon.

Upon the white cheek of the Cherub Year
    I saw a tear.
Alas! I murmured, that the Year should borrow
    So soon a sorrow.
Just then the sunlight fell with sudden flame:
    The tear became
A wond'rous diamond sparkling in the light -
    A beauteous sight.

Upon my soul there fell such woeful loss,
    I said, "The Cross
Is grievous for a life as young as mine."
    Just then, like wine,
God's sunlight shone from His high Heavens down;
    And lo! a crown
Gleamed in the place of what I thought a burden -
    My sorrow's guerdon.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Guerdon

Upon the white cheek of the Cherub Year
    I saw a tear.
Alas!    I murmured, that the Year should borrow
    So soon a sorrow.
Just then the sunlight fell with sudden flame:
    The tear became
A wondrous diamond sparkling in the light -
    A beauteous sight.

Upon my soul there fell such woeful loss,
    I said, "The Cross
Is grievous for a life as young as mine."
    Just then, like wine,
God's sunlight shone from His high Heavens down;
    And lo! a crown
Gleamed in the place of what I thought a burden -
    My sorrow's guerdon.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox