That's The Way

Just a little every day-
That's the way!
Seeds in darkness swell and grow,
Tiny blades push through the snow;
Never any flower of May
Leaps to blossom in a burst,
Slowly, slowly, as the first,
That's the way.
Just a little every day.

Just a little every day-
That's the way,
Children learn to read and write
Bit by bit and mite by mite,
Never any one I say
Leaps to knowledge and its power;
Slowly, slowly, hour by hour,
That's the way!
Just a little every day.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Why The Daisies Are Not All White

Uncle Rob says:
Once the daisies all were white,
Till a baby fellow
Ate his supper down one night,
And stained his face all yellow.

Smeared with butter, off to bed
Crept the sleepy flower.
'Fie!' the good nurse dew-drop said,
Come now to my bower.

'Let me wash you clean, I pray,
Like the pink and rosy.'
But the daisy pulled away
Like a stubborn posy.
All unwashed he went to sleep,
Naughty little fellow.
Ever since he's had to keep

[...] Read more

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Freedom

I care not who were vicious back of me,
No shadow of their sins on me is shed.
My will is greater than heredity.
I am no worm to feed upon the dead.

My face, my form, my gestures and my voice,
May be reflections from a race that was.
But this I know, and knowing it, rejoice,
I am Myself, a part of the Great Cause.

I am a spirit! Spirit would suffice,
If rightly used, to set a chained world free.
Am I not stronger than a mortal vice
That crawls the length of some ancestral tree?

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Thought-Magnets

With each strong thought, with every earnest longing
For aught thou deemest needful to thy soul,
Invisible vast forces are set thronging
Between thee and that goal.

‘Tis only when some hidden weakness alters
And changes thy desire, or makes it less,
That this mysterious army ever falters
Or stops short of success.

Thought is a magnet; and the longed-for pleasure
Or boon, or aim, or object, is the steel;
And is attainment hangs but on the measure
Of what thy soul can feel.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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If

If I were a raindrop, and you were a leaf,
I would burst from the cloud above you
And lie on your breast in a rapture of rest,
And love you, love you, love you.

If I were a brown bee, and you were a rose,
I would fly to you, love, nor miss you;
I would sip and sip from your nectared lip,
And kiss you, kiss you, kiss you.

If I were a doe, dear, and you were a brook,
Ah, what would I do then, think you?
I would kneel by the bank, in the grasses dank,
And drink you, drink you, drink you.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Passing The Buck

Whatever the task that comes your way,
Just take it as part of your luck.
Look it right square in the eyes, and say,
'This is
my
task, I'll do it to-day':
Don't pass the buck.

Oh! whether you cook, or whether you fight,
Or whether you trundle a truck,
Just tackle your job and do it right:
Don't pass the buck.

The wheels of the earth have gone, alack!
Deep into war's mire and muck.
If you want to put it again on its track,
Don't shift your load on another man's back:
Don't pass the buck.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Mockery

Why do we grudge our sweets so to the living
Who, God knows, find at best too much of gall,
And then with generous, open hands kneel, giving
Unto the dead our all?
Why do we pierce the warm hearts, sin or sorrow,
With idle jests, or scorn, or cruel sneers,
And when it cannot know, on some to-morrow,
Speak of its woe through tears?
What do the dead care, for the tender token—
The love, the praise, the floral offerings?
But palpitating, living hearts are broken
For want of just these things.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Love

The longer I live and the more I see
Of the struggle of souls towards the heights above,
The stronger this truth comes home to me---
That the Universe rests on the shoulders of love,
A love so limitless, deep, and broad,
That men have re-named it, and called it God.

And nothing that was ever born or evolved,
Nothing created by light or force
But deep in its system there lies dissolved
A shining drop from the great Love source;
A shining drop that shall live for aye;
Though kingdoms may perish and stars decay.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Guerdon

Upon the white cheek of the Cherub Year
I saw a tear.
Alas! I murmured, that the Year should borrow
So soon a sorrow.
Just then the sunlight fell with sudden flame:
A tear became
A wondrous diamond sparkling in the light –
A beautiful sight.

Upon my soul there fell such woeful loss,
I said, ‘The Cross
Is grievous for a life as young as mine.’
Just then, like wine,
God’s sunlight shone from His high Heavens down;
And lo! a crown
Gleamed in the place of what I thought a burden –
My sorrow’s guerdon.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Farewell

'Tis not the untried soldier new to danger
Who fears to enter into active strife.
Amidst the roll of drums, the cannon's rattle,
He craves adventure, and thinks not of life.

But the scarred vetran knows the price of glory,
He does not court the conflict or the fray.
He has no longing to rehearse that gory
And most dramatic act, or wars dark play.

He who to love has always been a stranger,
All unafraid may linger in your spell.
My heart has known the warfare, and its danger.
It craves no repitition - so farewell.

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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