Thanksgiving / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ms. Jones, Our Almost Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, 2005 (cropped).

CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Thanksgiving

We walk on starry fields of white
    And do not see the daisies;
For blessings common in our sight
    We rarely offer praises.
We sigh for some supreme delight
    To crown our lives with splendor,
And quite ignore our daily store
    Of pleasures sweet and tender.

Our cares are bold and push their way
    Upon our thought and feeling.
They hand about us all the day,
    Our time from pleasure stealing.
So unobtrusive many a joy
    We pass by and forget it,
But worry strives to own our lives,
    And conquers if we let it.

There’s not a day in all the year
    But holds some hidden pleasure,
And looking back, joys oft appear
    To brim the past’s wide measure.
But blessings are like friends, I hold,
    Who love and labor near us.
We ought to raise our notes of praise
    While living hearts can hear us.

Full many a blessing wears the guise
    Of worry or of trouble;
Far-seeing is the soul, and wise,
    Who knows the mask is double.
But he who has the faith and strength
    To thank his God for sorrow
Has found a joy without alloy
    To gladden every morrow.

We ought to make the moments notes
    Of happy, glad Thanksgiving;
The hours and days a silent phrase
    Of music we are living.
And so the theme should swell and grow
    As weeks and months pass o’er us,
And rise sublime at this good time,
    A grand Thanksgiving chorus.

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Custer, and other poems, 1896

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography

"Thanksgiving" read by WarmVoice.

September / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

September

My life's long radiant Summer halts at last
     And lo! beside my pathway I behold
Pursuing Autumn glide: nor frost nor cold
     Has heralded her presence; but a vast
Sweet calm that comes not till the year has passed
     Its fevered solstice, and a tinge of gold
Subdues the vivid coloring of bold
     And passion-hued emotions. I will cast
My August days behind me with my May,
     Nor strive to drag them into Autumn's place,
Nor swear I hope when I do but remember.
     Now violet and rose have had their day
I'll pluck the soberer asters with good grace
     And call September nothing but September.

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Poems of Sentiment, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography

But One / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

But One

The year has but one June, dear friend,
     The year has but one June;
And when that perfect month doth end,
The robin's song, though loud, though long,
     Seems never quite in tune.

The rose, though still its blushing face
     By bee and bird is seen,
May yet have lost that subtle grace —
That nameless spell the winds know well —
     Which makes it garden's queen.

Life's perfect June, love's red, red rose,
     Have burned and bloomed for me.
Though still youth's summer sunlight glows;
Though thou art kind, dear friend, I find
     I have no heart for thee.

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Poems of Passion, 1883

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography

"But One" read by Aimee. Courtesy Aimee Reads Poetry.

A March Snow / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A March Snow

Let the old snow be covered with the new:
The trampled snow, so soiled, and stained, and sodden.
Let it be hidden wholly from our view
By pure white flakes, all trackless and untrodden.
When Winter dies, low at the sweet Spring's feet
Let him be mantled in a clean, white sheet.

Let the old life be covered by the new:
The old past life so full of sad mistakes,
Let it be wholly hidden from the view
By deeds as white and silent as snow-flakes.

Ere this earth life melts in the eternal Spring
Let the white mantle of repentance fling
Soft drapery about it, fold on fold,
Even as the new snow covers up the old.

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Poetical Works, 1917

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography

"A March Snow" sung by Thomas Edholm.

Summer's Farewell / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Summer's Farewell

All in the time when Earth did most deplore
   The cold, ungracious aspect of young May,
Sweet Summer came, and bade him smile once more;
   She wove bright garlands, and in winsome play
   She bound him willing captive. Day by day
She found new wiles wherewith his heart to please;
   Or bright the sun, or if the skies were gray,
They laughed together, under spreading trees,
By running brooks, or on the sandy shores of seas.

They were but comrades. To that radiant maid
   No serious word he spake; no lovers’ plea.
Like careless children, glad and unafraid,
   They sported in their opulence of glee.
   Her shining tresses floated wild and free;
In simple lines her emerald garments hung;
   She was both good to hear, and fair to see;
And when she laughed, then Earth laughed too, and flung
His cares behind him, and grew radiant and young.

One golden day, as he reclined beneath
   The arching azure of enchanting skies,
Fair Summer came, engirdled with a wreath
   Of gorgeous leaves all scintillant with dyes.
   Effulgent was she; yet within her eyes,
There hung a quivering mist of tears unshed.
   Her crimson-mantled bosom shook with sighs;
Above him bent the glory of her head;
And on his mouth she pressed a splendid kiss, and fled.

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Poems of Experience, 1910

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography

The End of the Summer / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The End of the Summer

The birds laugh loud and long together
When Fashion's followers speed away
At the first cool breath of autumn weather.
Why, this is the time, cry the birds, to stay!
When the deep calm sea and the deep sky over
Both look their passion through sun-kissed space,
As a blue-eyed maid and her blue-eyed lover
Might each gaze into the other's face.

Oh! this is the time when careful spying
Discovers the secrets Nature knows.
You find when the butterflies plan for flying
(Before the thrush or the blackbird goes),
You see some day by the water's edges
A brilliant border of red and black;
And then off over the hills and hedges
It flutters away on the summer's track.

The shy little sumacs, in lonely places,
Bowed all summer with dust and heat,
Like clean-clad children with rain-washed faces,
Are dressed in scarlet from head to feet.
And never a flower had the boastful summer,
In all the blossoms that decked her sod,
So royal hued as that later comer
The purple chum of the goldenrod.

Some chill grey dawn you note with grieving
That the King of Autumn is on his way.
You see, with a sorrowful, slow believing,
How the wanton woods have gone astray.
They wear the stain of bold caresses,
Of riotous revels with old King Frost;
They dazzle all eyes with their gorgeous dresses,
Nor care that their green young leaves are lost.

A wet wind blows from the East one morning,
The wood's gay garments looked draggled out.
You hear a sound, and your heart takes warning –
The birds are planning their winter route.
They wheel and settle and scold and wrangle,
Their tempers are ruffled, their voices loud;
Then whirr – and away in a feathered tangle,
To fade in the south like a passing cloud.

Envoi

A songless wood stripped bare of glory –
A sodden moor that is black and brown;
The year has finished its last love-story:
Oh! let us away to the gay bright town.

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Poems of Sentiment, 1906

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography

The Year / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Year

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that's the burden of the year.

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Poems of Cheer, 1914

[Poem is in the public domain]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography

"The Year" read for The Reading Tree.

Father / Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Father

He never made a fortune, or a noise
In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
Who loved the very ground on which he trod.
They thought him just little short of God;
Oh you should have heard the way they said his name –
‘Father.’

There seemed to be a loving little prayer
In their voices, even when they called him ‘Dad.’
Though the man was never heard of anywhere,
As a hero, yet somehow understood
He was doing well his part and making good;
And you knew it, by the way his children had
Of saying ‘Father.’

He gave them neither eminence nor wealth,
But he gave them blood untainted with a vice,
And opulence of undiluted health.
He was honest, and unpurchable and kind;
He was clean in heart, and body, and in mind.
So he made them heirs to riches without price –
This father.

He never preached or scolded; and the rod –
Well, he used it as a turning pole in play.
But he showed the tender sympathy of God.
To his children in their troubles, and their joys.
He was always chum and comrade with his boys,
And his daughters – oh, you ought to hear them say
‘Father.’

Now I think of all achievements ‘tis the least
To perpetuate the species; it is done
By the insect and the serpent, and the beast.
But the man who keeps his body, and his thought,
Worth bestowing on an offspring love-begot,
Then the highest earthly glory he has won,
When in pride a grown-up daughter or a son
Says ‘That’s Father.’

~~
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
from Poems of Experiance, 1910

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Ella Wheeler Wilcox biography

"Father" read by Aimee. Courtesy Aimee Reads Poetry.