You Never Can Tell

You never can tell when you send a word,
    Like an arrow shot from a bow
By an archer blind, be it cruel or kind,
    Just where it may chance to go!
It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend,
    Tipped with its poison or balm;
To a stranger's heart in life's great mart,
    It may carry its pain or its calm.

You never can tell when you do an act
    Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
    Though the harvest you may not see.
Each kindly act is an acorn dropped
    In God's productive soil.
You may not know, but the tree shall grow,
    With shelter for those who toil.

You never can tell what your thoughts will do,
    In bringing you hate or love;
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
    Are swifter than carrier doves.
They follow the law of the universe -
    Each thing must create its kind;
And they speed o'er the track to bring you back
    WHATEVER WENT OUT FROM YOUR MIND.

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

Progression

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

On Avon's Breast I Saw A Stately Swan

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

His Youth

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Simple Poetry

English

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You Never Can Tell

You never can tell when you send a word,
    Like an arrow shot from a bow
By an archer blind, be it cruel or kind,
    Just where it may chance to go.
It may pierce the breast of your dearest friend.
    Tipped with its poison or balm,
To a stranger's heart in life's great mart,
    It may carry its pain or its calm.

You never can tell when you do an act
    Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
    Though the harvest you may not see.
Each kindly act is an acorn dropped
    In God's productive soil
You may not know, but the tree shall grow,
    With shelter for those who toil.

You never can tell what your thoughts will do,
    In bringing you hate or love;
For thoughts are things, and their airy wings

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Thoughts

Thoughts do not need the wings of words
    To fly to any goal.
Like subtle lightnings, not like birds,
    They speed from soul to soul.

Hide in your heart a bitter thought -
    Still it has power to blight;
Think Love -although you speak it not
    It gives the world more light.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Insight

On the river of life, as I float along,
    I see with the spirit's sight
That many a nauseous weed of wrong
    Has root in a seed of right.
For evil is good that has gone astray,
    And sorrow is only blindness,
And the world is always under the sway
    Of a changeless law of kindness.

The commonest error a truth can make
    Is shouting its sweet voice hoarse,
And sin is only the soul's mistake
    In misdirecting its force.
And love, the fairest of all fair things
    That ever to man descended,
Grows rank with nettles and poisonous things
    Unless it is watched and tended.

There could not be anything better than this
    Old world in the way it began;
And though some matters have gone amiss
    From the great original plan,<...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Karma

I

We cannot choose our sorrows.    One there was
Who, reverent of soul, and strong with trust,
Cried, 'God, though Thou shouldst bow me to the dust,
Yet will I praise thy everlasting laws.
Beggared, my faith would never halt or pause,
But sing Thy glory, feasting on a crust.
Only one boon, one precious boon I must
Demand of Thee, O opulent great Cause.
Let Love stay with me, constant to the end,
Though fame pass by and poverty pursue.'
With freighted hold her life ship onward sailed;
The world gave wealth, and pleasure, and a friend,
Unmarred by envy, and whose heart was true.
But ere the sun reached midday, Love had failed.

II

Then from the depths, in bitterness she cried,
'Hell is on earth, and heaven is but a dream;
And human lif...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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

Words

Words are great forces in the realm of life:
    Be careful of their use.    Who talks of hate,
Of poverty, of sickness, but sets rife
    These very elements to mar his fate.

When love, health, happiness, and plenty hear
    Their names repeated over day by day,
They wing their way like answering fairies near,
    Then nestle down within our homes to stay.

Who talks of evil conjures into shape
    The formless thing and gives it life and scope.
This is the law:    then let no word escape
    That does not breathe of everlasting hope.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox