Twin-Born.

        He who possesses virtue at its best,
    Or greatness in the true sense of the word,
    Has one day started even with that herd
        Whose swift feet now speed but at sin's behest.
        It is the same force in the human breast
    Which makes men gods or demons. If we gird
    Those strong emotions by which we are stirred
        With might of will and purpose, heights unguessed
    Shall dawn for us; or if we give them sway
        We can sink down and consort with the lost.
        All virtue is worth just the price it cost.
    Black sin is oft white truth that missed its way
        And wandered off in paths not understood.
        Twin-born I hold great evil and great good.

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 Revealing Angels

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Perfection

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Our Petty Cares

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

Europe

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.

Dual

You say that your nature is double; that life
    Seems more and more intricate, complex, and dual,
Because in your bosom there wages the strife
    'Twixt an angel of light and a beast that is cruel -
An angel who whispers your spirit has wings,
And a beast who would chain you to temporal things.

I listen with interest to all you have told,
    And now let me give you my view of your trouble:
You are to be envied, not pitied; I hold
    THAT EVERY STRONG NATURE IS ALWAYS MADE DOUBLE.
The beast has his purpose; he need not be slain:
He should serve the good angel in harness and chain.

The body that never knows carnal desires,
    The heart that to passion is always a stranger,
Is merely a furnace with unlighted fires;
    It sends forth no warmth while ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Eternal Will

There is no thing we cannot overcome
    Say not thy evil instinct is inherited,
Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn,
    And calls down punishment that is not merited.

Back of thy parents and grandparents lies
    The Great Eternal Will.    That, too, is thine
    Inheritance; strong, beautiful, divine,
Sure lever of success for one who tries.

Pry up thy faults with this great lever, Will.
    However deeply bedded in propensity,
However firmly set, I tell thee firmer yet
    Is that vast power that comes from Truth's immensity.

Thou art a part of that strange world, I say.
    Its forces lie within thee, stronger far
    Than all thy mortal sins and frailties are,
Believe thyself divine, and watch, and pray.

There i...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Well-Born

So many people - people - in the world;
So few great souls, love ordered, well begun,
In answer to the fertile mother need!
So few who seem
The image of the Maker's mortal dream;
So many born of mere propinquity -
Of lustful habit, or of accident.
Their mothers felt
No mighty, all-compelling wish to see
Their bosoms garden-places
Abloom with flower faces;
No tidal wave swept o'er them with its flood;
No thrill of flesh or heart; no leap of blood;
No glowing fire, flaming to white desire
For mating and for motherhood:
Yet they bore children.
God! how mankind misuses Thy command,
To populate the earth!
How low is brought high birth!
How low the woman; when, inert as spawn
Left on the sands to fertilise,
She is the means through which the...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Brotherhood

When in the even ways of life
    The old world jogs along,
Our little coloured flags we flaunt:
Our little separate selves we vaunt:
    Each pipes his native song.
And jealousy and greed and pride
    Join their ungodly hands,
And this round lovely world divide
    Into opposing lands.

But let some crucial hour of pain
    Sound from the tower of time,
Then consciousness of brotherhood
Wakes in each heart the latent good,
    And men become sublime.
As swarming insects of the night,
    Fly when the sun bursts in,
Self fades, before love's radiant light,
    And all the world is kin.

God, what a place this earth would be
    If that uplifting thought,
Born of some vast world accident,
Into our daily lives were blent,

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Twins

Affectionately Inscribed to W.M.R. and L.R.


April, on whose wings
Ride all gracious things,
Like the star that brings
All things good to man,
Ere his light, that yet
Makes the month shine, set,
And fair May forget
Whence her birth began,

Brings, as heart would choose,
Sound of golden news,
Bright as kindling dews
When the dawn begins;
Tidings clear as mirth,
Sweet as air and earth
Now that hail the birth,
Twice thus blest, of twins.

In the lovely land
Where with hand in hand
Lovers wedded stand
Other joys before
Made your mixed life sweet:
Now, as Time sees meet,
Three glad blossoms greet
Two glad blossoms more.

Fed with sun and dew,
While your joys were new,
First aros...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Trinity

Much may be done with the world we are in,
Much with the race to better it;
We can unfetter it,
Free it from chains of the old traditions;
Broaden its viewpoint of virtue and sin;
Change its conditions
Of labour and wealth;
And open new roadways to knowledge and health.
Yet some things ever must stay as they are
While the sea has its tide and the sky has its star.
A man and a woman with love between,
Loyal and tender and true and clean,
Nothing better has been or can be
Than just those three.

Woman may alter the first great plan.
Daughters and sisters and mothers
May stalk with their brothers
Forth from their homes into noisy places
Fit (and fit only) for masculine man.
Marring their graces
With conflict and strife
To widen the o...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox