American
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) was an American poet and journalist, born in Johnstown Center, Wisconsin. She began publishing verse as a girl and became one of the most widely read popular poets of her day, writing for newspapers and magazines as well as in book form.
Poems of Passion (1883), a collection of her love poems, drew a storm of public criticism for its frankness and, with it, a great many readers; Maurine and Other Poems appeared in 1888. Her best-known lines, such as “Laugh, and the world laughs with you” (from “Solitude”), became proverbial in English.
Poems (1,100)
- The Poet's Song
- Love's Language
- Impatience
- Communism
- The Common Lot
- Individuality
- Friendship After Love
- Queries
- Upon the Sand
- Reunited
- What Shall We Do?
- "The Beautiful Blue Danube"
- Answered
- Through the Valley
- But One
- Guilo
- The Duet
- Little Queen
- Wherefore?
- Delilah
- Love Song
- Time and Love
- Change
- Desolation
- Isaura
- The Coquette
- New and Old
- Not Quite the Same
- From the Grave
- A Waltz-Quadrille
- Beppo
- Tired
- The Speech of Silence
- Conversion
- Love's Coming
- Old and New
- Perfectness
- Attraction
- Gracia
- Ad Finem
- Bleak Weather
- An Answer
- You Will Forget Me
- The Farewell of Clarimonde
- The Trio
- The Lost Garden
- Art and Heart
- Mockery
- As by Fire
- If I Should Die
- Mésalliance
- Response
- Drouth
- The Creed
- Progress
- My Friend
- Creation
- Red Carnations
- Life Is Too Short
- A Sculptor
- Beyond
- The Saddest Hour
- Show Me the Way
- My Heritage
- Resolve
- At Eleusis
- Courage
- Solitude
- The Year Outgrows the Spring
- The Beautiful Land of Nod
- The Tiger
- Only a Simple Rhyme
- I Will Be Worthy of It
- Sonnet
- Regret
- Let Me Lean Hard
- Penalty
- Sunset
- The Wheel of the Breast
- A Meeting
- Earnestness
- A Picture
- Twin-Born
- Floods
- A Fable
- Proem
- Two Sunsets
- Unrest
- "Artist's Life"
- Nothing but Stones
- Inevitable
- The Ocean of Song
- "It Might Have Been"
- If
- Gethsemane
- Dust-Sealed
- "Advice"
- Over the Banisters
- Momus, God of Laughter
- I Dream
- The Past
- The Sonnet
- Secrets
- A Dream
- Uselessness
- Will
- Winter Rain
- Applause
- Life
- Burdened
- The Story
- Let Them Go
- The Engine
- Nothing New
- Dreams
- Helena
- Nothing Remains
- Lean Down
- Comrades
- What Gain?
- Life
- To the West
- The Land of Content
- A Song of Life
- Warning
- The Christian's New Year Prayer
- In the Night
- God's Measure
- A March Snow
- After the Battles Are Over
- Noblesse Oblige
- And They Are Dumb
- Night
- All for Me
- Philosophy
- "Carlos"
- The Two Glasses
- Through Tears
- Into Space
- Through Dim Eyes
- La Mort d'Amour
- The Punished
- Half Fledged
- Love's Sleep
- True Culture
- The Voluptuary
- The Year
- The Unattained
- In the Crowd
- Life and I
- Guerdon
- Snowed Under
- Platonic
- What We Needed
- "Leudemann's-on-the-River"
- In the Long Run
- Plea to Science
- Love's Burial
- Little Blue Hood
- No Spring
- Lippo
- Midsummer
- A Reminiscence
- Respite
- A Girl's Faith
- Two
- Slipping Away
- Is It Done?
- A Leaf
- Aesthetic
- Sunday
- Monday
- Tuesday
- Wednesday
- Thursday
- Friday
- Saturday
- Ghosts
- Fleeing Away
- All Mad
- Hidden Gems
- By-and-By
- Over the May Hill
- A Song
- Foes
- Friendship
- The World's Need
- High Noon
- Transformation
- Thought-Magnets
- Smiles
- The Undiscovered Country
- The Universal Route
- Earthly Pride
- Unanswered Prayers
- Thanksgiving
- A Maiden to Her Mirror
- The Kettle
- Contrasts
- Thy Ship
- The Tryst
- Life
- A Marine Etching
- The Duel
- Love Thyself Last
- Christmas Fancies
- The River
- Sorry
- The Old Wooden Cradle
- Ambition's Trail
- The Traveled Man
- Uncontrolled
- The Tulip Bed at Greeley Square
- Will
- To An Astrologer
- The Tendril's Faith
- The Times
- The Question
- Sorrow's Uses
- If
- Which Are You?
- The Creed To Be
- Music in the Flat
- Inspiration
- The Wish
- Three Friends
- You Never Can Tell
- Here and Now
- Unconquered
- All That Love Asks
- Does It Pay
- Sestina
- The Optimist
- The Pessimist
- The Hammock's Complaint
- Life's Harmonies
- Preaching vs. Practice
- An Old Man to His Sleeping Young Bride
- I Am
- Two Nights
- Preparation
- Custer
- Love's Language
- 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
- A Dialogue
- The Weed
- Strength
- Affirm
- The Chosen
- The Nameless
- The Word
- Assistance
- 'Credulity'
- Consciousness
- The Structure
- Our Souls
- The Law
- Knowledge
- Give
- Perfection
- Fear
- The Way
- Understood
- His Mansion
- Effect
- Three Things
- Obstacles
- Prayer
- Climbing
- 'There is no Death, There are no Dead'
- Realisation
- An Old Heart
- Warp and Woof
- So Long
- If I Could Only Weep
- Why Should We Sigh
- A Wakeful Night
- If One Should Dive Deep
- Two (As I sat in my opera box last night)
- No Comfort
- It Does Not Matter
- The Under-Tone
- Worth Living
- More Fortunate
- He Will Not Come
- Worn Out
- Rondeau
- Trifles
- Courage (Whether the way be dark or light)
- The Other
- Mad
- Which
- Love's Burial (See him quake and see him tremble)
- Incomplete
- On Rainy Days
- Geraldine
- Only in Dreams
- Circumstance
- Simple Creeds
- The Bridal Eve
- Good Night
- No Place
- Found
- A Man's Reverie
- When My Sweet Lady Sings
- Spectres
- Only a Line
- Parting
- Estranged
- Before and After
- An Empty Crib
- The Arrival
- Go Back
- Why I Love Her
- Discontent
- A Dream (In the night I dreamed that you had died)
- The Night
- New Year (The year like a ship in the distance)
- Reverie
- The Law (The tide of love swells in me with such force)
- Spirit of a Great Control
- Noon
- The Search
- A Man's Good-Bye
- At the Hop
- Met
- Returned Birds
- A Crushed Leaf
- A Curious Story
- Jenny Lind
- Life's Key
- Bridge of Prayer
- New Year (Know this! there is nothing can harm you)
- Deceitful Calm
- Un Rencontre
- Burned Out
- Only a Glove
- Reminders
- A Dirge
- Not Anchored
- The New Love
- An East Wind
- Cheating Time
- Only a Slight Flirtation
- What the Rain Saw
- After
- Our Petty Cares
- The Ship and the Boat
- Come Near
- A Suggestion
- A Fisherman's Baby
- Content and Happiness
- The Cusine
- I Wonder Why
- A Woman's Hand
- Presentiment
- Two Rooms
- Three at the Opera
- A Strain of Music
- Smoke
- An Autumn Day
- Wishes
- The Play
- As We Look Back (Rondeau)
- Why
- Listen
- Together
- One Night
- Lost Nation
- The Captive
- No Song
- Two Friends
- I Didn't Think
- A Burial
- Their Faces
- The Lullaby
- Mirage
- Alone in the House
- An Old Bouquet
- At the Bridal
- Best
- Surrender
- The Birth of the Opal
- The Difference
- Two Loves
- The Way of It
- Angel or Demon
- Dawn
- Peace and Love
- The Instructor
- Blase
- The Sea-Breeze and the Scarf
- Three and One
- Inborn
- Two Prayers
- Sleep and Death
- Absence
- Love Much
- One of Us Two
- Her Reverie
- Two Sinners
- What Love Is
- Constancy
- Optimism
- Pain’s Proof
- Immortality
- Answered Prayers
- The Lady of Tears
- The Master Hand
- Secret Thoughts
- There Comes a Time
- The World
- Necessity
- Achievement
- Belief
- Whatever Is—Is Best
- Peace at the Goal
- Recompense
- Desire
- Deathless
- Keep Out of the Past
- The Fault of the Age
- Distrust
- Artist and Man
- Babyland
- A Face
- An Old Comrade
- Entre-Acte Reveries
- A Plea
- The Room Beneath the Rafters
- The Mother-in-Law
- An Old Fan
- No Classes!
- A Gray Mood
- At an Old Drawer
- The Old Stage Queen
- Faith
- The True Knight
- The City
- Woman
- The Soul’s Farewell to the Body
- Thimble Islands
- My Grave
- Refuted
- The Lost Land
- The South
- A Sailor’s Wife
- Life’s Journey
- The Disappointed
- Fishing
- A Pin
- The Actor
- Illogical
- Now
- The Empty Bowl
- Keep Going
- The London ‘Bobby’
- Read at the Benefit of Clara Morris
- Two Ghosts
- Battle Hymn of the Women
- Memories
- See?
- The Purpose
- The White Man
- A Moorish Maid
- Lincoln
- I Know Not
- Interlude
- Resurrection
- The Voices of the City
- If Christ Came Questioning
- England, Awake!
- Be Not Attached
- An Episode
- The Voice of the Voiceless
- Time’s Defeat
- The Hymn of the Republic
- At Bay
- The Birth of Jealousy
- Summer’s Farewell
- Christ Crucified
- The Trip to Mars
- Fiction and Fact
- How the White Rose Came
- I Look to Science
- Appreciation
- The Awakening
- Most Blest Is He
- Nirvana
- Two Men
- Only Be Still
- Pardoned Out
- The Tides
- Progression
- Acquaintance
- The Tower-Room
- Father
- Greater Britain
- Belgium
- Knitting
- Mobilisation
- Neutral
- A Book for the King
- The Men-Made Gods
- The Ghosts
- The Poet's Theme
- Europe
- The Peace Angel
- Peace Should Not Come
- The Winds of Fate
- Beauty
- The Invisible Helpers
- To the Women of Australia
- Replies
- Earth Bound
- A Successful Man
- Unsatisfied
- Separation
- To the Teachers of the Young
- Beauty Making
- On Avon's Breast I Saw a Stately Swan
- The Little Go-Cart
- I Am Running Forth to Meet You
- Martyrs of Peace
- Home
- The Eternal Now
- If I Were a Man, a Young Man
- We Must Send Them Out to Play
- Protest
- Reward
- This Is My Task
- Behold the Earth
- What They Saw
- His Last Letter
- A Wish
- An Old Song
- Oh, Poor, Sick World
- Praise Day
- The Land of the Gone-Away-Souls
- The Harp's Song
- The Pendulum
- An Old-Fashioned Type
- The Sword
- Love and the Seasons
- A Naughty Little Comet
- The Last Dance
- A Vagabond Mind
- My Flower Room
- My Faith
- Arrow and Bow
- If We Should Meet Him
- The Secret of Prayer
- The Answer
- A Vision
- The Second Coming
- Double Carnations
- Never Mind
- Two Women
- It All Will Come Out Right
- A Warning
- Shrines
- The Watcher
- Swimming Song
- Love, Time, and Will
- The Two Ages
- Couleur De Rose
- Last Love
- Life's Track
- An Ode to Time
- Regret and Remorse
- Easter Morn
- Blind
- The Yellow-Covered Almanac
- The Little White Hearse
- Success
- The Lady and the Dame
- Heaven and Hell
- Love's Supremacy
- The Eternal Will
- Insight
- A Woman's Love
- The Pæan of Peace
- “Has Been”
- Duty's Path
- March
- The End of the Summer
- Sun Shadows
- “He That Looketh”
- An Erring Woman's Love
- A Song of Republics
- Memorial Day—1892
- When Baby Souls Sail Out
- To Another Woman's Baby
- Diamonds
- Rubies
- Sapphires
- Turquoise
- Reform
- A Minor Chord
- Death's Protest
- September
- Wail of an Old-Timer
- Was, Is, and Yet-To-Be
- Mistakes
- Dual
- The All-Creative Spark
- Be Not Content
- Action
- Two Roses
- Satiety
- A Solar Eclipse
- The Depths
- Life's Opera
- The Salt Sea-Wind
- Concentration
- Thoughts
- Luck
- Resolve (Poems of Pleasure)
- The Law (Poems of Pleasure)
- New Year (Morning Hills)
- New Year (Time’s Ocean)
- The Radiant Christ
- Woman
- The Law
- Realisation
- A Suggestion
- New Year
- The Kingdom of Love
- Meg's Curse
- The Gossips
- Grandpa's Christmas
- After the Engagement
- A Holiday
- False
- The Phantom Ball
- Words and Thoughts
- Wanted--A Little Girl
- The Suicide
- "Now I Lay Me"
- The Messenger
- A Servian Legend
- Peek-A-Boo
- The Falling of Thrones
- Her Last Letter
- The Princess's Finger-Nail: A Tale of Nonsense Land
- A Baby in the House
- The Foolish Elm
- Robin's Mistake
- What We Want
- Breaking the Day in Two
- The Rape of the Mist
- The Maniac
- What Is Flirtation?
- Husband and Wife
- Reincarnation
- As You Go Through Life
- How Salvator Won
- How Will It Be?
- Memory's River
- Love's Way
- A Man's Last Love
- Confession
- A Married Coquette
- Forbidden Speech
- The Summer Girl
- The Ghost
- The Signboard
- A Man's Repentance
- Aristarchus
- Dell and I
- About May
- Vanity Fair
- The Giddy Girl
- A Girl's Autumn Reverie
- His Youth
- Under the Sheet
- The Coming Man
- A Good Sport
- A Son Speaks
- The Younger Born
- Happiness
- Seeking for Happiness
- The Island of Endless Play
- The River of Sleep
- The Things that Count
- Limitless
- The Convention
- A Bachelor to a Married Flirt
- The Superwoman
- Certitude
- Compassion
- Love
- Three Souls
- When Love is Lost
- Occupation
- The Valley of Fear
- America
- War Mothers
- The Undertone
- Gypsying
- Song of the Road
- The Faith we Need
- The Price he Paid
- Divorced
- The Revealing Angels
- The Well-born
- Sisters of Mine
- Answer
- The Graduates
- The Silent Tragedy
- The Trinity
- The Unwed Mother to the Wife
- Father and Son
- Husks
- The Traveller
- Meditations
- What Have You Done?
- The Queen’s Last Ride
- The Englishman
- Canada
- Coronation Poem and Prayer
- Two Voices
- A Ballade of the Unborn Dead
- The Truth Teller
- Just You
- Reflection
- Songs of Love and the Sea
- In India’s Dreamy Land
- Rangoon
- Thoughts on Leaving Japan
- On Seeing the Diabutsu—at Kamakura, Japan
- The Little Lady of the Bullock Cart
- East and West
- The Squanderer
- Compensations
- Song of the Rail
- Always at Sea
- The Suitors
- The Jealous Gods
- God Rules Alway
- The Cure
- The Forecast
- Little Girls
- Science
- The Earth
- The Muse and the Poet
- The Spinster
- Brotherhood
- The Tavern of Last Times
- If I Were
- Warned
- Forward
- In England
- Karma
- Petition
- A Waft of Perfume
- The Plough
- Go Plant a Tree
- Pain’s Purpose
- Memory’s Mansion
- Old Rhythm and Rhyme
- All in a Coach and Four
- Songs of a Country Home
- Worthy the Name of “Sir Knight”
- The Brave Highland Laddies
- Men of the Sea
- Ode to the British Fleet
- The German Fleet
- Deep Unto Deep Was Calling
- The Song of the Allies
- Ten Thousand Men a Day
- ‘America Will Not Turn Back’
- War
- The Hour
- The Message
- ‘Flowers of France’
- Our Atlas
- Camp Followers
- Come Back Clean
- Camouflage
- The Khaki Boys Who Were Not at the Front
- Time’s Hymn of Hate
- Dear Motherland of France
- The Spirit of Great Joan
- Speak
- The Girl of the U.S.A.
- Passing the Buck
- Song of the Aviator
- The Stevedores
- A Song of Home
- The Swan of Dijon
- Veils
- In France I Saw a Hill
- American Boys, Hello!
- De Rochambeau
- The Blasphemy of Guns
- The Crimes of Peace
- It May Be
- Then and Now
- Widows
- Conversation
- I, Too
- He That Hath Ears
- Answers
- How Is It?
- ‘Let Us Give Thanks’
- The Black Sheep
- One by One
- Be Not Dismayed
- Ascension
- The Deadliest Sin
- The Rainbow of Promise
- They Shall Not Win
- A Holiday
- Thanksgiving
- The Awakening
- After
- Prayer
- The Meeting of the Centuries
- Death Has Crowned Him a Martyr
- Grief
- Illusion
- Assertion
- Wishing
- We Two
- Song of the Spirit
- Womanhood
- Morning Prayer
- The Voices of the People
- The World Grows Better
- A Man's Ideal
- The Fire Brigade
- When the Regiment Came Back
- Woman to Man
- You and To-Day
- The Reason
- Mission
- Repetition
- Begin the Day
- Words
- Fate and I
- Attainment
- A Plea to Peace
- Presumption
- An Inspiration
- What We Need
- Song
- My Ships
- Her Love
- Love Is Enough
- The Tides
- The Traveller
- The Earth
- Now
- Insight
- Our Lives
- Idle
- Ye Agents
- Stars
- Fading
- Haunted
- Tim's Story
- Memory's Garden
- Mysteries
- What the Winds Told Me
- Sometimes
- Blind Sorrow
- "Be Not Weary"
- To Those Who Never Pray
- Hung
- Fame
- Her Mother's Beautiful Eyes
- Old Times
- This World
- Going Away
- Good Bye
- Jamie
- A Mother's Reverie
- Twilight Thoughts
- Only a Kiss
- When I Am Dead
- Don't Talk When You've Nothing to Say
- The Frost Fairy
- Florabelle
- The Doomed City's Prayer
- One Woman's Plea
- Decoration Poem
- The People's Favorite
- Dream-Time
- Lines Written upon the Death of James Buell
- Under the Willow
- Doubting
- At Sunset
- A Twilight Thought
- True Warriors
- One of These
- A Fancy
- Never
- True Love
- His Song
- When You Go Away
- The Tale the Robin Told
- A Memory
- Waiting
- Drifting Apart
- Once More Together
- Once in a While
- A Plea for Fame
- Somewhere
- Our Angel
- A Summer Idyl
- The Musicians
- In Vain
- Baby Eva
- I Shall Not Forget
- The Old and the New
- Decoration Poem (II)
- At Set of Sun
- Display
- At the Window
- How
- King and Siren
- If You Had Been True
- Afloat
- Roses and Lilies
- In Heaven with You
- Thou Dost Not Know
- A Golden Year
- Foreshadowed
- Fortune's Wheel
- Searching
- Daft
- Trust
- The Common Link
- Buried To-Day
- When I Die
- The Unseen Thorn
- Father and Child
- Under the Moon
- Singers
- Take My Hand
- Disinterred
- A Lawyer's Romance
- A Summer Day
- Song and Maid
- Asleep
- Two Counts
- Life and Death
- An Autumn Reverie
- Two Lives
- In Memoriam
- My Love
- The Summons
- Three Years Old
- Loves Extravagance
- Bohemia
- When
- Only Dreams
- Contentment
- A New Year's Greeting to the City of the Lakes
- Mother's Loss
- The Women
- A Tribute to Vinnie Ream
- The Little Bird
- Dying
- Sunshine and Shadow
- Transplanted
- Worldly Wisdom
- My Comrade
- So Long in Coming
- Lay It Away
- Perished
- The Belle's Soliloquy
- My Vision
- Sing to Me
- Summer Song
- The Belle of the Season
- Joy
- Bird of Hope
- A Golden Day
- Fading (II)
- All the World
- Lines
- A Fragment
- The Change
- Old
- In Memory of J. B.
- Out of the Depths
- The Pilgrim Fathers
- For Him Who Best Shall Understand It
- Dying (II)
- Until the Night
- A Tribute
- In Memory of Charlie Spaulding
- "Sweet Danger"
- A Fatal Impress
- The Farewell
- Love Will Wane
- Three-Fold
- A Maiden's Secret
- Art and Love
- One Woman's History
- Why the Spring Is Late
- River and Sea
- In the Garden
- Lines on H--'s Foot
- Resigned
- In Faith
- I Told You
- Lost
- Only a Sad Mistake
- Song of the Wheelman
- "The Old Moon in the New Moon's Arms"
- Long Ago
- Take My Hand (II)
- The Wild Blue-Bells
- A Waif
- A Face at the Window
- Our Blessings
- Growing Old
- The Summons (II)
- A Mother's Wail
- "The Same Old Strain"
- Denied
- Rich and Poor
- Over the Alley
- Finis
- Lines (II)
- Over the Water
- The Camp Fire
- Independence Ode
- Recrimination