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Read Ebook: Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels by Wilcox Ella Wheeler
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Edition: 10
POEMS OF PROGRESS
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Contents:
Preface The Land Between Love's Mirage The Need of the World The Gulf Stream Remembered Helen of Troy Lais when Young Lais when Old Existence Holiday Songs Astrolabius Completion Sleep's Treachery Art versus Cupid The Revolt of Vashti The Choosing of Esther Honeymoon Scene The Cost The Voice God's Answer The Edict of the Sex The World-child The Heights On seeing 'The House of Julia' at Herculaneum A Prayer What is Right Living? Justice Time's Gaze The Worker and the Work Art thou Alive? To-day The Ladder Who is a Christian? The Goal The Spur Awakened! Shadows The New Commandment Summer Dreams The Breaking of Chains December 'The Way' The Leader to be The Greater Love Thank God for Life Time Enough New Year's Day Life is a Privilege In an Old Art Gallery True Brotherhood The Decadent Lord, speak again My Heaven Life God's Kin Conquest The Statue Sirius At Fontainebleau The Masquerade Sympathy Intermediary Life's Car Opportunity The Age of Motored Things New Year Disarmament The Call A Little Song
PREFACE: LOVE'S LANGUAGE
When silence flees before the voice of Love, Of what expression does that god approve? Is dulcet song or flowing verse his choice, Or stately prose, made regal by his voice? Speaks Love in couplets, or in epics grand? And is Love humble, or does he command?
There is no language that Love does not speak: To-day commanding and to-morrow meek, One hour laconic and the next verbose, With hope triumphant and with doubt morose, His varying moods all forms of speech employ. To give expression to his painful joy,
To voice the phases of his joyful pain, He rings the changes on the poet's strain. Yet not in epic, epigram or verse Can Love the passion of his heart rehearse. All speech, all language, is inadequate, There are no words with Love commensurate.
THE LAND BETWEEN
Between the little Here and larger Yonder, There is a realm Where faithful spirits love-enchained may wander, Till some remembering soul from earth has fled. Then, reunited, they go forth afar, From sphere to sphere, where wondrous angels are.
Not many spirits in that realm are waiting; Not many pause upon its shores to rest; For only love, intense and unabating, Can hold them from the longer, higher quest. And after grief has wept itself to sleep, Few hearts on earth their vital memories keep.
Should I pass on, across the mystic border, Let thy love link me to that pallid land; I would not seek the heavens of finer order Until thy barque had left this coarser strand. How desolate such journeyings would be, Though straight to Him, were they not shared by thee.
Wert thou first called I should enchain thee with my love, I know. Not great enough am I to free thy spirit From all these tender ties, and bid thee go. Nor would a soul, unselfish as thine own, Forget so soon, and speed to heaven alone.
On earth we find no joy in ways diverging; How could we find it in the worlds unseen? I know old memories from my bosom surging, Would keep thee waiting in that Land Between, Until together, side by side, we trod A path of stars, in our great search for God.
LOVE'S MIRAGE
Midway upon the route, he paused athirst And suddenly across the wastes of heat, He saw cool waters gleaming, and a sweet Green oasis upon his vision burst. A tender dream, long in his bosom nursed, Spread love's illusive verdure for his feet; The barren sands changed into golden wheat; The way grew glad that late had seemed accursed.
She shone, the woman wonder, on his soul; The garden spot, for which men toil and wait; The house of rest, that is each heart's demand; But when, at last, he reached the gleaming goal, He found, oh, cruel irony of fate, But desert sun upon the desert sand.
THE NEED OF THE WORLD
I know the need of the world, Though it would not have me know. It would hide its sorrow deep, Where only God may go. Yet its secret it can not keep; It tells it awake, or asleep, It tells it to all who will heed, And he who runs may read. The need of the world I know.
I know the need of the world, When it boasts of its wealth the loudest, When it flaunts it in all men's eyes, When its mien is the gayest and proudest. Oh! ever it lies--it lies, For the sound of its laughter dies In a sob and a smothered moan, And it weeps when it sits alone. The need of the world I know.
I know the need of the world. When the earth shakes under the tread Of men who march to the fight, When rivers with blood are red And there is no law but might, And the wrong way seems the right; When he who slaughters the most Is all men's pride and boast. The need of the world I know.
I know the need of the world. When it babbles of gold and fame, It is only to lead us astray From the thing that it dare not name, For this is the sad world's way. Oh! poor blind world grown grey With the need of a thing so near, With the want of a thing so dear. The need of the world I know.
The need of the world is love. Deep under the pride of power, Down under its lust of greed, For the joys that last but an hour, There lies forever its need. For love is the law and the creed And love is the unnamed goal Of life, from man to the mole. Love is the need of the world.
THE GULF STREAM
Skilled mariner, and counted sane and wise, That was a curious thing which chanced to me, So good a sailor on so fair a sea. With favouring winds and blue unshadowed skies, Led by the faithful beacon of Love's eyes, Past reef and shoal, my life-boat bounded free And fearless of all changes that might be Under calm waves, where many a sunk rock lies.
A golden dawn; yet suddenly my barque Strained at the sails, as in a cyclone's blast; And battled with an unseen current's force, For we had entered when the night was dark That old tempestuous Gulf Stream of the Past. But for love's eyes, I had not kept the course.
REMEMBERED
His art was loving; Eres set his sign Upon that youthful forehead, and he drew The hearts of women, as the sun draws dew. Love feeds love's thirst as wine feeds love of wine; Nor is there any potion from the vine Which makes men drunken like the subtle brew Of kisses crushed by kisses; and he grew Inebriated with that draught divine.
Yet in his sober moments, when the sun Of radiant summer paled to lonely fall, And passion's sea had grown an ebbing tide, From out the many, Memory singled one Full cup that seemed the sweetest of them all - The warm red mouth that mocked him and denied.
HELEN OF TROY ON THE ISLE OF CRANAE
The world an abject vassal to her charms, And kings competing for a single smile, Yet love she knew not, till upon this isle She gave surrender to abducting arms. Not Theseus, who plucked her lips' first kiss, Not Menelaus, lawful mate and spouse, Such answering passion in her heart could rouse, Or wake such tumult in her soul as this. Let come what will, let Greece and Asia meet, Let heroes die and kingdoms run with gore; Let devastation spread from shore to shore - Resplendent Helen finds her bondage sweet. The whole world fights her battles, while she lies Sunned in the fervour of young Paris' eyes.
ON THE ISLE OF RHODES
Yet Time, like Menelaus, all forgives. Helen, immortal in her beauty, lives.
LAIS WHEN YOUNG
Lais when young, and all her charms in flower, Lais, whose beauty was the fateful light That led great ships to anchor in the night And bring their priceless cargoes to her bower, Lais yet found her cup of sweet turned sour. Great Plato's pupil, from his lofty height, Zenocrates, unmoved, had seen the white Sweet wonder of her, and defied her power.
She snared the world in nets of subtle wiles: The proud, the famed, all clamoured at her gate; Dictators plead, inside her portico; Wisdom sought madness, in her favouring smiles; Now was she made the laughing-stock of fate: One loosed her clinging arms, and bade her go.
LAIS WHEN OLD
Lais, when old and all her beauty gone, Lais, the erstwhile courted pleasure queen, Walked homeless through Corinth. One mocked her mien - One tossed her coins; she took them and passed on. Down by the harbour sloped a terraced lawn, Where fountains played; she paused to view the scene. A marble palace stood in bowers of green 'Twas here of old she revelled till the dawn.
Through yonder portico her lovers came - Hero and statesman, athlete, merchant, sage; They flung the whole world's treasures at her feet To buy her favour and exalt her shame.
She spat upon her dole of coins in rage And faded like a phantom down the street.
You are here, and you are wanted, Though a waif upon life's stair; Though the sunlit hours are haunted With the shadowy shapes of care. Still the Great One, the All-Seeing Called your spirit into being - Gave you strength for any fate. Since your life by Him was needed, All your ways by Him are heeded - You can trust and you can wait.
You can wait to know the meaning Of the troubles sent your soul; Of the chasms intervening 'Twixt your purpose and your goal; Of the sorrows and the trials, Of the silence and denials, Ofttimes answering to your pleas; Of the stinted sweets of pleasure, And of pain's too generous measure - You can wait the WHY of these.
Forth from planet unto planet, You have gone, and you will go. Space is vast, but we must span it; For life's purpose is TO KNOW. Earth retains you but a minute, Make the best of what lies in it; Light the pathway where you are. There is nothing worth the doing That will leave regret or rueing, As you speed from star to star.
You are part of the Beginning, You are parcel of To-day. When He set His world to spinning You were flung upon your way. When the system falls to pieces, When this pulsing epoch ceases, When the IS becomes the WAS, You will live, for you will enter In the great Creative Centre, In the All-Enduring Cause.
HOLIDAY SONGS
Sailing away on a summer sea, Out of the bleak March weather; Drifting away for a loaf and play, Just you and I together; And it's good-bye worry and good-bye hurry And never a care have we; With the sea below and the sun above And nothing to do but dream and love, Sailing away together.
Sailing away from the grim old town And tasks the town calls duty; Sailing away from walls of grey To a land of bloom and beauty, And it's good-bye to letters from our lessers and our betters, To the cold world's smile or its frown. We sail away on a sunny track To find the summer and bring it back And love is our only duty.
We have left grey skies behind us, We sail under skies of blue; You are off with me on lovers' sea, And I am away with you. We have not a single sorrow, And I have but one fear - That my lips may miss one offered kiss From the mouth that is smiling near.
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