Coronation Poem And Prayer
The world has crowned a thousand kings:
But destiny has kept
Her weightiest hour of kingly power
To offer England's son.
The rising bell of Progress rings;
And Truths which long have slept,
Like prophets strange, predicting change,
Before Time's chariot run.
The greatest Empire of the Earth.
Old England proudly stands.
Like arteries her Colonies
Reach out from sea to sea.
She clasps all races in her girth;
Her gaze the world commands;
And far and wide where strong ships ride,
The British Flag floats free.
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Suicide
Last was the wealth I carried in life's pack-
Youth, health, ambition, hope and trust but Time
And Fate, those robbers fit for any crime
Stole all, and left me but the empty sack.
Before me lay a long and lonely track
Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb;
Behind me lay in shadows the sublime
Lost lands of Love's delight. Alack! Alack!
Unwearied, and with springing steps elate,
I had conveyed my wealth along the road.
The empty sack proved now a heavier load:
I was borne down beneath its worthless weight.
I stumbled on, and knocked at Death's dark gate.
There was no answer. Stung by sorrow's goad
I
forced
my way into that grim abode,
And laughed, and flung Life's empty sack to Fate
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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In The Night
In the silent midnight watches,
When the earth was clothed in gloom,
And the grim and awful darkness
Crept unbidden to my room-
On the solemn, deathly stillness
Of the night, there broke a sound,
Like ten million wailing voices
Crying loudly from the ground.
From ten million graves came voices,
East and West, and North and South,
Leagues apart, and yet together
Spake they, e'en as with one mouth:
'Men and women! men and women!'
Cried these voices from the ground,
And the very earth was shaken
With the strange and awful sound-
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Voice
I dreamed a Voice, of one God-authorised,
Cried loudly thro’ the world, ‘Disarm! Disarm! ’
And there was consernation in the camps;
And men who strutted under braid and lace
Beat on their medalled breasts, and wailed,
‘Undone! ’
The word was echoed from a thousand hills,
And shop and mill, and factory and forge,
Where throve the awful industries of death,
Hushed into silence. Scrawled upon the doors,
The passer read, ‘Peace bids her children
Starve.’
But foolish women clasped their little sons
And wept for joy, not reasoning like men.
Again the Voice commanded: ‘Now go forth
And build a world for Progress and for Peace.
This world had waited since the earth was
Shaped;
But men were fighting, and they could not
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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A Servian Legend
Long, long ago, ere yet our race began,
When earth was empty, waiting still for man,
Before the breath of life to him was given
The angels fell into a strife in heaven.
At length one furious demon grasped the sun
And sped away as fast as he could run,
And with a ringing laugh of fiendish mirth,
He leaped the battlements and fell to earth.
Dark was it then in heaven, but light below;
For there the demon wandered to and fro,
Tilting aloft upon a slender pole
The orb of day-the pilfering old soul.
The angels wept and wailed; but through the dark
The Great Creator's voice cried sternly: sternly: 'Hark!
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Two Ships
On the sea of life they floated,
Brothers twain in manhood's pride,
And the good ship 'Temperance' bore them,
Safely o'er the stormy tide.
Not a thought of rock or breaker,
Not a fear of wreck had they,
For their ship was strong and steady-
Faithful, trusty, night and day.
So they floated on together,
Full of youth's elastic joy,
Floated till the air was startled
With the cry of 'Boat ahoy!'
And they saw a craft beside them,
Dainty, jaunty, frail, and fair,
And its banner showed a wine-glass,
Painted as its symbol there.
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Meeting Of The Centuries
A CURIOUS vision, on mine eyes unfurled
In the deep night. I saw, or seemed to see,
Two Centuries meet, and sit down vis-a-vis,
Across the great round table of the world.
One with suggested sorrows in his mien
And on his brow the furrowed lines of thought.
And one whose glad expectant presence brought
A glow and radiance from the realms unseen.
Hand clasped with hand, in silence for a space,
The Centuries sat; the sad old eyes of one
(As grave paternal eyes regard a son)
Gazing upon that other eager face.
And then a voice, as cadenceless and gray
As the sea's monody in winter time,
Mingled with tones melodious, as the chime
Of bird choirs, singing in the dawns of May.
THE OLD CENTURY SPEAKS:
By you, Hope stands. With me, Experience walks.
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Widows
The world was widowed by the death of Christ:
Vainly its suffering soul for peace has sought
And found it not.
For nothing, nothing, nothing has sufficed
To bring back comfort to the stricken house
From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse.
In its long widowhood the world has striven
To find diversion. It has turned away
From the vast awefull silences of Heaven
(Which answer but with silence when we pray)
And sought for something to assuage its grief.
Some surcease and relief
From sorrow, in pursuit of mortal joys.
It drowned God's stillness in a sea of noise;
It lost God's presence in a blur of forms;
Till, bruised and bleeding with life's brutal storms,
Unto immutable and speechless space
The World lifts up its face,
Its haggard, tear-drenched face,
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Two Armies
Once over the ocean in distant lands,
In an age long past, were two hostile bands-
Two armies of men, both brave, both strong,
And their hearts beat high as they marched along
To fight the battle of right and wrong.
Never, I think, did the Eye of heaven
Look down on two armies so nearly even
In well-trained soldiers, in strength and might.
But one was the
Wrong
, and one was the
Right
,
And the last was the stronger in heaven's sight.
And these hostile armies drew near, one night,
And pitched their tents on two hill-sides green,
With only the brow of a hill between.
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Realisation
Hers was a lonely, shadowed lot;
Or so the unperceiving thought,
Who looked no deeper than her face,
Devoid of chiselled lines of grace –
No farther than her humble grate,
And wondered how she bore her fate.
Yet she was neither lone nor sad;
So much of love her spirit had,
She found an ever-flowing spring
Of happiness in everything.
So near to her was Nature’s heart
It seemed a very living part
Of her own self; and bud and blade,
And heat and cold, and sun and shade,
And dawn and sunset, Spring and Fall,
Held raptures for her, one and all.
The year’s four changing seasons brought
To her own door what thousands sought
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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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