Wishing

Do you wish the world were better?
    Let me tell you what to do:
Set a watch upon your actions,
    Keep them always straight and true;
Rid your mind of selfish motives;
    Let your thoughts be clean and high.
You can make a little Eden
    Of the sphere you occupy.

Do you wish the world were wiser?
    Well, suppose you make a start,
By accumulating wisdom
    In the scrapbook of your heart:
Do not waste one page on folly;
    Live to learn, and learn to live.
If you want to give men knowledge
    You must get it, ere you give.

Do you wish the world were happy?
    Then remember day by day
Just to scatter seeds of kindness
    As you pass along the way;
For the pleasures of the many
    May be ofttimes traced to one,
As the hand that plants an acorn
    Shelters armies from the sun.

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'.

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English

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Wishes

Whatever you want, if you wish for it long,
    With constant yearning and fervent desire,
If your wish soars upward on wings so strong
    That they never grow languid and never tire, -

Why, over the storm clouds and out of the dark
    It shall come flying some day to you.
As the dove with the olive branch flew to the ark,
    And the dream you have cherished -it shall come true.

But lest much rapture shall make you mad,
    Or too bright sunshine should strike you blind,
Along with your blessing a something sad
    Shall come like a shadow that follows behind.

Something unwelcome and unforeseen,
    Yet of your hope and your wish, a part,
Shall stand like a sentinel in between
    The perfect joy and the human heart.

I wished for a c...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Wish

Should some great angel say to me to-morrow,
    "Thou must re-tread thy pathway from the start,
But God will grant, in pity, for thy sorrow,
    Some one dear wish, the nearest to thy heart."

This were my wish! from my life's dim beginning
    Let be what has been! wisdom planned the whole;
My want, my woe, my errors, and my sinning,
    All, all were needed lessons for my soul.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Wish

Should some great angel say to me to-morrow,
    "Thou must re-tread thy pathway from the start,
But God will grant, in pity, for thy sorrow,
    Some one dear wish, the nearest to thy heart."

This were my wish! - from my life's dim beginning
    LET BE WHAT HAS BEEN! wisdom planned the whole
My want, my woe, my errors, and my sinning,
    All, all were needed lessons for my soul.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Mission

If you are sighing for a lofty work,
    If great ambitions dominate your mind,
Just watch yourself and see you do not shirk
    The common little ways of being kind.

If you are dreaming of a future goal,
    When, crowned with glory, men shall own your power,
Be careful that you let no struggling soul
    Go by unaided in the present hour.

If you are moved to pity for the earth,
    And long to aid it, do not look so high,
You pass some poor, dumb creature faint with thirst -
    All life is equal in the eternal eye.

If you would help to make the wrong things right,
    Begin at home:    there lies a lifetime's toil.
Weed your own garden fair for all men's sight,
    Before you plan to till another's soil.

God chooses His own leaders i...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Wishes For A Little Girl

What would I ask the kindly fates to give
    To crown her life, if I could have my way?
My strongest wishes would be negative,
    If they would but obey.

Give her not greatness.    For great souls must stand
    Alone and lonely in this little world:
Cleft rocks that show the great Creator's hand,
    Thither by earthquakes hurled.

Give her not genius.    Spare her the cruel pain
    Of finding her whole life a prey for daws;
Of hearing with quickened sense and burning brain
    The world's sneer-tinged applause.

Give her not perfect beauty's gifts.    For then
    Her truthful mirror would infuse her mind
With love for self, and for the praise of men,
    That lowers woman-kind.

But make her fair and comely to the sight,
    Giv...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Morning Prayer

Let me to-day do something that shall take
    A little sadness from the world's vast store,
And may I be so favoured as to make
    Of joy's too scanty sum a little more
Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed
    Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend;
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,
    Or sin by silence when I should defend.
However meagre be my worldly wealth,
    Let me give something that shall aid my. kind -
A word of courage, or a thought of health,
    Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.
Let me to-night look back across the span
    'Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say -
Because of some good act to beast or man -
    "The world is better that I lived to-day."

Ella Wheeler Wilcox