 Preface to Poems of Passion. O you who read some song that I have sung, what know you of the soul from whence it sprung? Dost dream the poet ever speaks aloud his secret thought unto the listening crowd. Go take the murmuring seashell from the shore. You have its shape, its colour, and no more. It tells not one of those vast mysteries that lie beneath the surface of the seas. Our songs are shells cast out by waves of thought. Here, take them at your pleasure, but think not, you've seen beneath the surface of the waves, where lie our shipwrecks and our coral caves. Among the twelve hundred poems which have emanated from my two prolific pen, there are some forty or fifty, which treat entirely of that emotion which has been denominated, the grand passion, love. A few of those are of an extremely fiery character. When I issued my collection known as Maureen and other poems, I purposely omitted all safe two or three of these. I had been frequently accused of writing only sentimental verses, and I took pleasure and pride in presenting to the public a volume which contained more than one hundred poems upon other than sentimental topics. But no sooner was the book published than letters of regret came to me from friends and strangers, and from all quarters of the globe, asking why this or that love poem had been omitted. These regrets were repeated to me by so many people that I decided to collect and issue these poems in a small volume to be called Poems of Passion. By the word Passion, I meant the grand passion of love. To those who take exception to the title of the book, I would suggest a reference to Webster's definition of the word. Since this volume has caused so much agitation throughout the entire country, and even sent a tremor across the Atlantic into the Old World, I beg leave to make a few statements concerning some of the poems. The excitement of mingled horror and amaze seems to center upon four poems, namely Delilah, Advinum, Conversion, and Communism. Delilah was written and first published in 1877. I had been reading history and became stirred by the power of such women as Apesia and Cleopatra over such grand men as Antony, Socrates, and Pericles. Under the influence of this feeling, I dashed off Delilah, which I meant to be an expression of the powerful fascination of such a woman upon the memory of a man, even as he neared the hour of death. If the poem is immoral, then the history which inspired it is immoral. I consider it my finest effort. Advinum was written in 1878. I think there are few women of strong character and affections who cannot, from either experience or observation, understand the violent intensity of regret and despair which sometimes takes possession of the human heart after the loss by death, fate, or the force of circumstances of someone very dear. In Advinum I intended to give voice to this very common experience of almost every heart. Many noble women have since told me that the poem was true to life. It is not, as many people have willfully or stupidly construed it, a bit of political advice to womankind to barter the joys of paradise for just one kiss. It is simply an illustration of a moment of turbulent anguish and vehement despair, such moments of un-reasoning and overwhelming sorrow as the most moral people may experience during a lifetime. In communism I endeavored to use a new simile in illustrating that somewhat hackneyed theme of the supremacy of love over reason, and simply to carry out my idea I represented the violent uprising of the communist emotions against king reason. A diversion was suggested to me by the remark of a gentleman friend. In speaking to me of the woman he loved he said, I have always been a skeptic regarding the existence of heaven, but I am so much happier in my love for this woman than I ever suppose that possible for me to be on earth, that I begin to believe that the tales of heavenly raptures may be true. I embodied his idea in the poem which has brought, with a few others, so much censure and criticism upon this volume, although it contains nearly seventy-five other selections quite irreproachable in character, however faulty they may be in construction. It is impossible to pursue a successful literary career and follow the advice of all one's best friends. I have received severe censure from my orthodox friends for writing liberal verses. My liberal friends condemn my devout and religious poems as aiding superstition. My early temperance verses were pronounced fanatical trash by others. With all due thanks and appreciation for the kind motives which interest so many dear friends in my career, I yet feel compelled to follow the light which my own intellect and judgment cast upon my way, rather than any one of the many conflicting rays which other minds would lend me. ELLA WHEELER How does love speak, in the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek, and in the pallor that succeeds it, by the quivering lid of an adverted eye, the smile that proves the patent to a sigh, thus doth love speak? How does love speak, by the uneven heart-throbs and the freak of bounding pulses that stand still and ache, while new emotions like strange barges make along vain channels their disturbing course, still as the dawn, and with the dawn's swift force, thus doth love speak? How does love speak, in the avoidance of that which we seek, the sudden silence and reserve when near, the eye that glistens with an unshared tear, the joy that seems the counterpart of fear, as the alarmed heart leaps in the breast, and knows and names and greets its godlike guest, thus doth love speak? How does love speak, in the proud spirit suddenly grown meek, the haughty heart grown humble, in the tender and unnamed light that floods the world with splendour, in the resemblance which the fond eyes trace, in all fair things to one beloved face, in the shy touch of hands that thrill and tremble, in looks and lips that can no more disemble, thus doth love speak? How does love speak, in the wild words that uttered seem so weak, they shrink ashamed to silence, in the fire glance strikes with glance, swift flashing high and higher, like lightnings that precede the mighty storm, in the deep, soulful stillness, in the warm, impassioned tide that sweeps through throbbing veins, between the shores of keen delight and pains, in the embrace where madness melts in bliss, and in the convulsive rapture of a kiss? Thus doth love speak? End of Love's language. PURMS OF PASSION How can I wait until you come to me? The once-fleet mornings linger by the way, their sunny smiles touched with malicious glee at my unrest. They seem to pause and play like truant children, while I sigh and say, How can I wait? How can I wait? Of old the rapid hours refused to pause or loiter with me long, but now they idly fill their hands with flowers and make no haste, but slowly stroll among the summer blooms, not heeding my one song. How can I wait? How can I wait? The nights alone are kind, they reach forth to a future day, and bring sweet dreams of you to people all my mind, and time speeds by on light and airy wing. I feast upon your face, I know more sing. How can I wait? How can I wait? The morning breaks the spell, a pitying night has flung upon my soul. You are not near me, and I know full well my heart has need of patience and control. Before we meet, hours, days and weeks must roll. How can I wait? How can I wait? Oh love, how can I wait, until the sunlight of your eyes shall shine upon my world that seems so desolate? Until your hand clasps warms my blood like wine, until you come again, oh love of mine. How can I wait? End of Impatience Communism of poems of passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Communism. When my blood flows calm as a pearling river, when my heart is asleep and my brain has sway, it is then that I vow we must part for ever, that I will forget you, and put you away, out of my life as a dream has banished, out of the mind when the dreamer awakes. But I know it will be when the spell has vanished, better for both of our sakes. When the court of the mind is ruled by reason, I know it is wiser for us to part, but love is a spy who is plotting treason, in league with that warm red rebel the heart. They whisper to me that the king is cruel, that his reign is wicked, his law a sin, and every word they utter is fuel to the flame that smolders within. And on nights like this, when my blood runs riot, with the fever of youth and its mad desires, when my brain and vein bids my heart be quiet, when my breast seems the centre of lava fires, oh then is the time when most I miss you, and I swear by the stars and my soul and say that I will have you and hold you and kiss you, though the whole world stands in the way. And like communists, as mad as disloyal, my fierce emotions roam out of their lair, they hate king reason for being royal, they would fire his castle and burn him there, oh love they would clasp you and crush you and kill you, in the insurrection of uncontrol. Across the miles does this wild war thrill you that is raging in my soul. End of communism. The common lot of poems of passion. It is a common fate, a woman's lot, to waste on one the riches of her soul, who takes the wealth she gives him, but cannot repay the interest and much less the whole. As I look up into your eyes and wait for some response to my fond gaze and touch, it seems to me that I have no choice but to give it to you, and I have no choice but to give for some response to my fond gaze and touch, it seems to me there is no sadder fate than to be doomed to loving over much. Are you not kind? Ah yes, so very kind, so thoughtful of my comfort and so true. Yes, yes, dear heart, but I not being blind know that I am not loved as I love you. One tenderer word, a little longer kiss, will fill my soul with music and with song, and if you seem abstracted, or I miss the heart tone from your voice, my world goes wrong. And oftentimes you think me childish, weak, when at some thoughtless word the tears will start. You cannot understand how ought you speak has power to stir the depths of my poor heart. I cannot help it, dear, I wish I could, or feign indifference where I now adore, for if I seemed to love you less, you would, manlike I have no doubt, love me the more. It is a sad gift that much applauded thing, a constant heart, for fact doth daily prove that constancy finds off the cruel sting, while fickle natures win the deeper love. End of the common lot. Oh yes, I love you, and with all my heart, just as a weak woman loves her own, better than I love my beloved art, which till you came, reigned royally alone, my king, my master. Since I saw your face I have dethroned it, and you hold that place. I am as weak as other women are. Your frown can make the whole world like a tomb. Your smile shines brighter than the sun by far. Sometimes I think there is not space or room in all the earth for such a love as mine, as it soars up to breathe in realm's divine. I know that your desertion or neglect could break my heart, as women's hearts do break. If my round days had nothing to expect from your love's splendour, all joy would forsake the chambers of my soul. Yes, this is true. And yet, and yet, one thing I keep from you. There is a subtle part of me, which went into my long pursued and worshipped art. Though your great love fills me with such content, no other love finds room now in my heart. Yet that rare essence was my arts alone. Thank God you cannot grasp it, it is my own. Thank God I say, for while I love you so, with that vast love, as passionate as tender, I feel an exaltation, as I know I have not made you a complete surrender. Here is my body, bruise it if you will, and break my heart. I have that something still. You cannot grasp it, seize the breath of mourn, or bind the perfume of the rose as well. God put it in my soul when I was born, it is not mine to give away or sell, or offer up on any altar shrine. It was my arts, and when not arts, it is mine. For love's sake I can put the art away, or anything which stands tweaked me and you. But that strange essence God bestowed, I say, to permeate the work he gave to do, and it cannot be drained, dissolved, or sent through any channel save the one he meant. End of individuality. Friendship after love. Of poems of passion. That's Libra Rock's recordings in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. Friendship after love. After the fierce midsummer all ablaze has burned itself to ashes, and expires in the intensity of its own fires, there come the mellow, mild St. Martin days, crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze. Though after love has led us, till he tires of his own throes and torments and desires, comes large-eyed friendship with a restful gaze, he beckons us to follow, and across cool verdant veils we wander free from care. Is it a touch of frost lies in the air? Why are we haunted with a sense of loss? We do not wish the pain back or the heat, and yet and yet these days are incomplete. Friendship after love. Queries of poems of passion. This Libra Rock's recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. Queries. Well, how has it been with you since we met that last strange time of a hundred times? When we met to swear that we could forget, I, your caresses, and you, my rhymes. The rhyme of my laze that rang like a bell, and the rhyme of my heart with yours as well. How has it been since we drank that last kiss, that was bitter with leaves of the wasted wine, when the tattered remains of a threadbare bliss, and the worn-out shreds of a joy divine, with the years best dreams and hopes, were cast into a rag-bag of the past? Since time the rag-bier hurried away, with a chuckle of glee at a bargain made. Did you discover, like me, one day that, heeding the folds of those garments frayed, repriceless jewels and diadems, the soul's best treasures, the heart's best gems? Have you, too, found that you could not supply the place of those jewels so rare and chaste? Do all that you borrow or beg or buy prove to be nothing but skillful paste? Have you found pleasure, as I found art, not all sufficient to fill your heart? Do you sometimes sigh for the tattered shreds of the old delight that we cast away, and find no worth in the silken threads of newer fabrics we wear to-day? Have you thought the bitter of that last kiss better than sweets of a later bliss? What idle queries, or yes or no? Whatever your answer, I understand that there is no pathway by which we can go back to the dead past's wonderland, and the gems he purchased for me, from you, there is no rebuying from time the Jew. End of queries. Upon the sand of poems of passion, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. All love that has not friendship for its base is like a mansion built upon the sand, though brave its walls as any in the land, and its tall turrets lift their heads in grace, though skillful and accomplished artists trace most beautiful designs on every hand, and gleaming statues in dim niches stand, and fountains play in some flower-hidden place. Yet, when the frowning east or sudden gust of adverse fate is blown, or sad rains fall, day in, day out, against its yielding wall, lo the fair structure crumbles to the dust. Love to endure life sorrow and earth's woe needs friendship's solid mason work below. End of Upon the Sand. Reunited of Poems of Passion. Let us begin, dear love, where we left off, tie up the broken threads of that old dream, and go on happy as before, and seem lovers again, though all the world may scoff. Let us forget the graves which lie between our parting and our meeting, and the tears that rusted out the goldwork of the years, the frost that fell upon our garden's green. Let us forget the cold, malicious fate, who made our loving hearts her idle toys, and once more revel in the old sweet joys of happy love, nay it is not too late. Forget the deep-plowed furrows in my brow, forget the silver gleaming in my hair, look only in my eyes. Oh, darling there, the old love shone no warmer than there now. Down in the tender deeps of thy dear eyes I find the lost sweet memory of my youth, bright with the holy radiance of thy truth, and hallowed with the blue of summer skies. Tie up the broken threads and let us go, like reunited lovers, hand in hand, back and yet onward to the sunny land of our to-be, which was our long ago. End of Reunited. What shall we do of poems of passion? This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Joy Chan, poems of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. What shall we do? Here now forevermore our lives must part, my path leads there and yours another way. What shall we do with this fond love, dear heart? It grows a heavier burden day by day. Hide it. In all earth's caverns, void and vast, there is not room enough to hide it, dear. Not even the mighty storehouse of the past could cover it from our own eyes, I fear. Drown it? Why, were the contents of each ocean merged into one great sea? Too shallow then would be its waters to sink this emotion so deep it could not rise to life again. Burn it? In all the furnace flames below, it would not in a thousand years expire, nay, it would thrive, exalt, expand and grow, for from its very birth it fed on fire. Starve it? Yes. Yes, that is the only way. Give it no food of glance or word or sigh, no memories even of any bygone day, no crumbs of vain regrets. So let it die. End of WHAT SHALL WE DO? THE BEAUTIFUL BLUE DANUBE OF PERMS OF PASSION They drift down the hall together, he smiles in her lifted eyes, like waves of that mighty river, the strains of the Danube rise. They float on its rhythmic measure, like leaves on a summer stream, and here in this scene of pleasure I bury my sweet dead dream. Through the cloud of her dusky tresses, like a star shines out her face, and the form his strong arm presses is silph-like in its grace. As a leaf on the bounding river is lost in the seething sea, I know that forever and ever my dream is lost to me. And still the veals are playing, that grand old wordless rhyme, and still those two eight swaying in perfect tune and time. If the great bassoons that mutter, if the clarinets that blow, were given a voice to utter the secret things they know, would the lists of the slam who slumber on the Danube's battle-planes, the unknown hosts outnumber who die beneath the Danube's veins. Those fall where cannons rattle, mid the rain of shot and shell, but these in a fiercer battle find death in the music's swell. With the river's roar of passion is blended the dying groan, but here in the halls of fashion hearts break and make no moan, and the music swelling and sweeping, like the river knows it all, but none are counting or keeping the lists of these who fall. End of the beautiful blue Danube. Answered of perms of passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Perms of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. Answered. Good-bye. Yes, I am going. Sudden? Well, you are right. But a startling truth came home to me with the sudden force last night. What is it? Shall I tell you? Nay, that is why I go. I am running away from the battlefield, turning my back on the foe. Riddles, you think me cruel. Have you not been most kind? Why, when you question me like that, what answer can I find? You fear you failed to amuse me, your husband's friend and guest, whom he bade you entertain and please. Well, you have done your best. And why am I going? A friend of mine abroad, whose theories I have been acting upon, has proven himself a fraud. You have heard me quote from Plato a thousand times, no doubt. Well, I have discovered he did not know what he was talking about. You think I am speaking strangely? You cannot understand. Well let me look down into your eyes, and let me take your hand. I am running away from danger. I am flying before I fall. I am going, because with heart and soul, I love you, that is all. There, now you are white with anger, I knew it would be so. You should not question a man too close, when he tells you he must go. End of answered. Through the valley of perms of passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan, perms of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. As I came through the valley of despair. As I came through the valley, on my sight, more awful than the darkness of the night, Sean glimpses of a past that had been fair, and memories of eyes that used to smile, and wafts of perfume from a vanished isle, as I came through the valley. As I came through the valley I could see, as I came through the valley, fair and far, as drowning men look up and see a star, the fading shore of my lost used to be, and like an arrow in my heart I heard the last sad notes of hope's expiring bird, as I came through the valley. As I came through the valley desolate, as I came through the valley, like a beam of lurid lightning I beheld a gleam of love's great eyes that now were full of hate. Dear God, dear God, I could bear all but that, but I fell down soul-stricken, dead thereat, as I came through the valley. End of As I came through the valley. But one of perms of passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Perms of Passion by 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 which makes its gardens queen. Life's perfect June loves red, red rose, have burned and bloomed for me, though still youth-summer sunlight glows, though thou art kind, dear friend, I find I have no heart for thee. End of As I came through the valley. Yes, yes, I love thee, Grieller, thee alone. Why dost thou sigh and wear that face of sorrow? The sunshine is to-days, although it shone on yesterday, and may shine on to-morrow. I love but thee, my Grieller, be content. The greediest heart can claim but present pleasure. The future is thy gods, the past is spent. To-days thine, clasp close the precious treasure. See how I love thee, Grieller, lips and eyes could never under thy fond gaze dissemble. I could not feign these passion-laden sighs, deceiving thee my pulses would not tremble. So I loved Ronnie. Hush, thou foolish one! I should forget him wholly, which thou let me. But remember that his day was done from that supremist hour when first I met thee. And Paul? Well, what of Paul? Paul had blue eyes and Romney gray, and thine are darkly tender. One finds fresh feelings under change of skies, a new horizon brings a newer splendour. As I love thee, I never loved before. Give me, Grieller, for I speak most truly. What though to Romney and to Paul I saw the self-same words, my heart now worships newly. We never feel the same emotion twice. No two ships ever plowed the self-same billow. The waters change with every fall and rise. So, Grieller, go contented to thy pillow. End of Grieller Duet of Poems of Passion I was smoking a cigarette, moored my wife, and the tenor, Mackey, were singing together a blithe duet, and days it were better I should forget came suddenly back to me. Days when life seemed a gay mask-ball, and to love and be loved was the sum of it all. As they sang together, the whole scene fled, the room's rich hangings, the sweet home air, stately moored with her proud blonde hair, and I seemed to see in her place instead a wealth of blue-black hair. And a face! Ah! Your face! Yours, Lizette! A face it were wiser I should forget. We were back. Well, no matter when or where, but you remember, I know, Lizette. I saw you, dainty and debonair, with the very same look that you used to wear. In the days I should forget. And your lips as red as the vintage we croft, were pearl-edged bumpers of wine when you laughed. Two small slippers with big rosettes peeped out under your kilt skirt there, while we sat smoking our cigarettes. Oh, I shall be dust when my heart forgets. And seeing that self-same an, and between the verses for interlude, I kissed your throat and your shoulders nude. You were so full of a subtle file. You were so warm and so sweet, Lizette, you were everything men admire. And there were no fetters to make us tire, for you were a pretty grizzette. But you loved, as only such natures can, with a love that makes heaven or hell for a man. They have ceased singing that old duet, stately moored in the tenor, McKee. You are burning your coat with your cigarette, and cavevue, dearest, your lids are wet. Maud says as she leans on me. And I smile and lie to her, husband-wise. Oh, which is nothing but smoke in my eyes. Little Queen of Poems of Passion Do you remember the name I wore, the old pet name of Little Queen, in the dear, dead days that are no more, the happiest days of our lives, I wean? For we loved with that passionate love of youth, that blesses but once with its perfect bliss, a love that, in spite of its trust and truth, seems never to thrive in a world like this. I lived for you and you lived for me, all was centred in Little Queen, and never a thought in our hearts had we that strife or trouble could come between. What utter sinking of self it was, how little we cared for the world of men, for love's fair kingdom and love's sweet laws were all of the world and life to us then. But a love like ours was a challenge to fate. She rang down the curtain and shifted the scene. Yet sometimes now, when the day grows late, I can hear you calling for Little Queen. For a happy home and a busy life can never wholly crowd out our past. In the twilight pauses that come from strife you will think of me while life shall last. And however sweet the voice of fame may sing to me of a great world's praise, I shall long sometimes for the old pet name that you gave to me in the dear dead days. But nothing the angel-band can say when I reach the shores of the great unseen, can please me so much as on that day to hear your greeting of Little Queen. Wherefore, of perms of passion, recording by Joy Chan, perms of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Wherefore, wherefore in dreams are sorrows born anew, a healed wound opened, or the past revived. Last night in my dream sleep I dreamed of you, again the old love woken me and thrived, on looks of fire and kisses and sweet words, like silver waters purling in a stream, or like the amorous melodies of birds, a dream, a dream. Again upon the glory of the scene there settled that dread shadow of the cross that, when heart's love too well falls in between, that warns them of impending woe and loss. Again I saw you drifting from my life, as barks I rudely parted in a stream. Again my heart was torn with awful strife, a dream, a dream. Again the deep night settled on me there. Alone I groped and heard strange waters roll, lost in that blackness of supreme despair, that comes but once to any living soul. Alone, afraid, I called your name aloud. Mine eyes unveiled, beheld, white stars aglean. And lo, awake I cried, thank God, thank God, a dream, a dream. End of wherefall. Delilah, of perms of passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Perms of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. Delilah. In the midnight of darkness and terror, when I would grop nearer to God, with my back to a record of error, and the highway of sin I have trod. There come to me shapes I would banish, the shapes of the deeds I have done. And I pray and I plead till they vanish. All vanish and leave me, save one. That one with a smile like the splendour of the sun in the middle-day skies. That one with a spell that is tender. That one with a dream in her eyes. One with close in her rare southern beauty. Her languor, her indolent grace. And my soul turns its back on its duty, to live in the light of her face. She touches my cheek and I quiver. I tremble with exquisite pains. She sighs like an overcharged river, my blood rushes on through my veins. She smiles, and in mad tiger fashion, as a she-tiger fondles her own. I clasp her with fierceness and passion, and kiss her with shudder and groan. Once more, in our love's sweet beginning, I put away God and the world. Once more, in the joys of our sinning, are the hopes of eternity hurled. There is nothing my soul lacks or misses, as I clasp the dream-shape to my breast. In the passion and pain of her kisses, life blooms to its richest and best. O ghost of dead sin unrelenting, go back to the dust and the sod. Too dear and too sweet for repenting, ye stand between me and my God. If I, by the throne, should behold you, smiling up with those eyes loved so well, close, close in my arms I would fold you, and drop with you down to sweet hell. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Love Song Once in the world's first prime, where nothing lived or stirred, nothing but newborn time, nor was there even a bird. The silence spoke to a star, but I do not dare repeat what it said to its love afar. It was too sweet, too sweet. But there, in the fair world's youth, Iosoro had drawn breath, where nothing was known but truth, nor was there even death. The star to silence was wed, and the sun was priest that day, and they made their bridal bed high in the milky way. For the great white star had heard her silent lover's speech. It needed no passionate word to pledge them each to each. O Lady Fair and Far, here, O hear and apply, Thou, the beautiful star, the voiceless silence, I. End of Love Song Time and Love of Poems of Passion. This LibriVox recordings in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Time and Love Time flies, the swift owls hurry by, and speed us on to untried ways. New seasons ripen, perish, die, and yet love stays. The old, old love, like sweet at first, at last like bitter wine, I know not if it blessed or cursed thy life and mine. Time flies, in vain our prayers, our tears. We cannot tempt him to delays. Down to the past he bears the years, and yet love stays. Through changing task and varying dream we hear the same refrain, as one can hear a plaintive theme run through each strain. Time flies, he steals our pulsing youth, he robs us of our carefree days, he takes away our trust and truth, and yet love stays. O time, take love, when love is vain, when all its best joys die, when only its regrets remain, let love too fly. End of Time and Love Change of Poems of Passion. This LibriVox recordings in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Change Yes, I will confess it, I have changed. I do not love in the old, fond way. I am your friend still. Time has not estranged one kindly feeling of that vanished day. But the bright glamour which made life a dream, the rapture of that time, its sweet content, like visions of a sleeper's brain they seem, and yet I cannot tell you how they went. Why do you gaze with such accusing eyes upon me, dear? Is it so very strange that hearts, like all things underneath God's skies, should sometimes feel the influence of change? The birds, the flowers, the foliage of the trees, the stars which seem so fixed and so sublime, vast continents and the eternal seas, all these do change with ever-changing time. The face Elmira shows us year on year is not the same. Our dearest aim or need, our light is thought or feeling, hope or fear, all, all the law of alteration heed. How can we ask the human heart to stay content with fancies of youth's earliest hours? The year outgrows the violets of May, although, maybe, there are no fairer flowers, and life may hold no sweeter love than this, which lies so cold, so voiceless and so dumb. And shall I miss it, dear? Why, yes, we miss the violets always, till the roses come. End of Change I think that the bitterest sorrow or pain of love unrequited or cold deaths were as sweet compared to that hour when we know that some grand passion is on the wane. When we see that the glory and glow and grace which lent a splendour to night and day are surely fading in showing the gray and dull groundwork of the commonplace. When fond expressions on dull ears fall, when the hands clasp calmly without one thrill, when we cannot muster by force of will all the cold emotions that came at call. When the dream has vanished we feign would keep, when the heart, like a watch, runs out of gear, and all the saver goes out of the year. Oh, then is the time, if we can, to weep. But no tears soften this dull pale woe. We must sit and face it with dry, sad eyes. If we seek to hold it, the swifter joy flies. We can only be passive and let it go. End of Desolation Isorah of poems of passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. Isorah. Dost thou not tire, Isorah, of this play? What play? Why this old play of winning hearts? Nay, now, lift not thine eyes in that feigned way. It is all in vain. I know thee and thine arts. Let us be frank, Isorah. I have made a study of thee, and while I admire the practice skill with which thy plans are laid, I can but wonder if thou dost not tire. Why, I tire even of Hamlet and Macbeth, when overlong the season runs, I find those master scenes of passion, blood and death, after a time do Paul upon my mind. Dost thou not tire of lifting up thine eyes to read the story thou hast read so oft, of ardent glances and deep quivering sighs, of haughty faces suddenly grown soft? Is it not stale, o very stale to thee, the scene that follows? Hearts are much the same, the loves of men but very in degree. They find no new expressions for the flame. Thou must know all they utter ere they speak, as I know Hamlet's part, whoever plays. O, does it not seem sometimes poor and weak? I think thou must grow weary of their ways. I pity thee, Isorah. I would be the humblest maiden with her dream untold, rather than live a queen of hearts like thee, and find life's rarest treasures stale and old. I pity thee, for now let come what may, fame, glory, riches, yet life will lack all. Wherewith can salt be salted? And what way can life be seasoned after love doth pour? End of Isorah The Coquette of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. The Coquette. Alone she sat with her accusing heart, that, like a restless comrade frightened sleep, and every thought that found her left a dart that hurt her soul, she could not even weep. Her heart that once had been a cup well filled with love's red wine, save for some drops of gall, she knew was empty, though it had not spilled its sweets for one, but wasted them on all. She stood upon the grave of her dead truth, and saw her soul's bright armour red with rust, and knew that all the riches of her youth were dead sea-apples crumbling into dust. Love that had turned to bitter, biting scorn, hearth-stones despoiled, and homes made desolate, made her cry out that she was ever born to loathe her beauty and to curse her fate. End of The Coquette New and Old of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. New and Old I and new love in all its living bloom sat vis-à-vis while tender twilight hours went softly by us, treading as on flowers. Then suddenly I saw within the room the old love long since lying in its tomb. It dropped the sear cloth from its fleshless face and smiled on me with a remembered grace that, like the noontide, lit the gloaming's gloom. Upon its shroud there hung the grave's green mould, about it hung the odour of the dead. Yet from its cavernous eyes such light was shed that all my life seemed gilded as with gold. And to the trembling new love, go, I said, I do not need thee, for I have the old. End of New and Old Not quite the same of Poems of Passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Not quite the same. Not quite the same the springtime seems to me, since that sad season went in separate ways our paths diverged. There are no more such days as dawn for us in that lost time when we dwelt in the realm of dreams, elusive dreams. Spring may be just as fair now, but it seems not quite the same. Not quite the same is life, since we too parted, knowing it best to go our ways alone. Fair measures of success we both have known, and pleasant hours, and yet something departed, which gold, nor fame, nor anything we win can all replace. And either life has been not quite the same. Love is not quite the same, although each heart has formed new ties that are both sweet and true, but that wild rapture which of old we knew seems to have been a something set apart with that lost dream. There is no passion now, mixed with this later love, which seems somehow not quite the same. Not quite the same am I, my inner being reasons and knows that all is for the best, yet vague regrets stir always in my breast, as my soul's eyes turn sadly backward, seeing the vanished self that evermore must be, this side of what we call eternity, not quite the same. End of Not Quite the Same From the Grave of Poems of Passion This Libri-Vox recording is in the public domain, recording by Joy Chan, Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. When the first sea-leaves of the year were falling, I heard, with a heart that was strangely thrilled, out of the grave of a dead past calling, a voice I fancied for ever stilled. All through winter and spring and summer, silence hung over that grave like a pall, but, born on the breath of the last sad-comer, I listened again to the old-time call. It is only a love of a bygone season, a senseless folly that mocked at me, a reckless passion that lacked all reason, so I killed it and hid it where none could see. I smothered it first to stop its crying, then stabbed it through with a good, sharp blade, and cold and pallid I saw it lying, and deep, ah, deep was the grave I made. But now I know that there is no killing, a thing like love, for it laughs at death. There is no hushing, there is no stilling, that which is part of your life and breath. You may bury it deep and leave behind you the land the people that knew your slain. It will push the sods from its grave, and find you on wastes of water or desert plain. You may hear but tongues of a foreign people, you may list to sounds that are strange and new, but clear as a silver bell in a steeple, that voice from the grave shall call to you. You may rouse your pride, you may use your reason, and seem for a space to slay love so. But all in its own good time and season, it will rise and follow wherever you go. You shall sit sometimes when the leaves are falling, alone with your heart, as I sit today, and hear that voice from your dead past calling out of the graves that you hid away. The band was playing a waltz quadril, I felt as light as a wind-blown feather, as we floated away at the callers' will, through the intricate mazy dance together. Like mimic armies our lines were meeting, slowly advancing and then retreating, all decked in their bright array, and back and forth to the music's rhyme we moved together, and all the time I knew you were going away. The fold of your strong arm sent a thrill from heart to brain as we gently glided, like leaves on the wave of that waltz quadril, parted, met, and again divided, you drifting one way, and I another, then suddenly turning and facing each other, then off in the blithe chasse, then eerily back to our places swaying, while every beat of the music seemed saying that you were going away. I said to my heart, let us take our fill of mirth and music and love and laughter, for it all must end with this waltz quadril, and life will be never the same life after. Oh, that the caller might go on calling, oh, that the music might go on falling, like a shower of silver spray, while we whirled on to the vast forever, where no heart's break and no ties sever, and no one goes away. A clamour, a crash, and the band was still, towards the end of the dream and the end of the measure. The last low notes of that waltz quadril seemed like a dirge or the death of pleasure. You said good night, and the spell was over, too warm for a friend and too cold for a lover. There was nothing else to say, but the lights looked dim and the dancers weary, and the music was sad and the hall was dreary, after you went away. What troubles thee? Am I not all thine own? I, so long sought, so sighed for and so dear, and do I not live but for thee alone? Thou hast seen Lipo whom I loved last year. Well, what of that? Last year's naught to me, to swallowed in the ocean of the past, art thou not glad towards Lipo and not thee, whose brief bright day in that great gulf was cast. Thy day is all before thee. Let no cloud, here in the very mourn of our delight, drift up from distant foreign skies to shroud our son of love whose radiance is so bright. Thou art not first, nay, and he who would be defeats his own heart's dearest purpose then. No truer truth was ever told to thee, who has loved most he best can love again. If Lipo, and not he alone, has taught the arts that please thee, wherefore art thou sad? Since all my vast love-law to thee has brought, look up and smile, my Bepper, and be glad. End of Bepper Tired of poems of passion, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Joy Chan, poems of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. Tired I am tired to-night, and something, the wind may be, or the rain, or the cry of a bird in the coops outside, has brought back the past and its pain, and I feel, as I sit here thinking, that the hand of a dead old June has reached out hold of my heart's loose strings and is drawing them up in tune. I am tired to-night, and I miss you, and long for you, love, through tears, and it seems but to-day that I saw you go, you who have been gone for years, and I seem to be newly lonely, I who am so much alone, and the strings of my heart are well in tune, but they have not the same old tone. I am tired, and that old sorrow sweeps down the bed of my soul, as a turbulent river might suddenly break away from a dam's control. It beareth a wreck on its bosom, a wreck with a snow-white sail, and the hand of my heart's strings thrums away, but they only respond with a wail. End of Tired The dead calm awws me with its awful stillness, no anxious doubts or fears disturb my breast. I only ask some little wave of language to stir this vast infinitude of rest. I am oppressed with this great sense of loving, so much I give, so much receive from thee, like subtle incense rising from a censor, so floats the fragrance of thy love round me. All speech is poor and written words unmeaning, yet such I ask, blown hither by some wind, to give relief to this too perfect knowledge, the silence so impresses on my mind. How poor the love that needeth word or message to banish doubt or nourish tenderness! I ask them but to temper love's convictions, the silence all too fully doth express. Too deep the language which the spirit utters, too vast the knowledge which my soul hath stirred, sends some white ship across the sea of silence and interrupts its utterance with a word. End of Speech of Silence Conversion of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. Conversion I have lived this life as the sceptic lives it. I have said the sweetness was less than the gall, praising nor cursing the hand that gives it. I have drifted aimlessly through it all. I have scoffed at the tale of a so-called heaven. I have laughed at the thought of a supreme friend. I have said that it only to man was given to live, to endure, and to die was the end. But I know that a good God reigneth. Generous-hearted and kind and true. Since unto a worm like me he has dayneth to send so royal a gift as you. Bright as a star you gleam on my bosom, sweet as a rose that the wild bee sips. And I know of my own, my beautiful blossom, that none but a God could mould such lips. And I believe in the fullest measure that ever a strong man's heart could hold in all the tales of heavenly pleasure by poets sung or by prophets told. For in the joy of your shy sweet kisses your pulsing touch and your languid sigh I am filled and thrilled with better blisses than ever were claimed for souls on high. And now I have faith in all the stories told of the beauties of unseen lands, of royal splendours and marvellous glories of golden city not made with hands, for the silken beauty of falling tresses, of lips all dewy and cheeks aglow, with what the mind and a half trance guesses of the twin perfection of drifts or snow, of limbs like marble, of thigh and shoulder, carved like a statue and high relief. These as the eyes and the thoughts grow bolder leave no room for an unbelief. So, my lady, my queen most royal, my scepticism has passed away. If you are true to me, true and loyal, I will believe till the judgment day. End of conversion Loves coming of poems of passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Loves coming. She had looked for his coming as warriors come with the clash of arms and the bugle's call, but he came instead with a stealthy tread which she did not hear at all. She had thought how his armour would blaze in the sun as he rode like a prince to claim his bride. In the sweet dim light of the falling night she found him at her side. She had dreamed how the gaze of his strange, bold eye would wake her heart to a sudden glow. She found in his face the familiar grace of a friend she used to know. She had dreamed how his coming would stir her soul as the ocean is stirred by the wild storm's strife. He brought her the balm of a heavenly calm and a peace which crowned her life. End of Loves coming. Old and new of poems of passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Old and New Long have the poets vaunted in their lays. Old times, old loves, old friendship and old wine. Why should the old monopolise all praise? Then let the new claim mine. Give me strong new friends when the old proved weak or fail me in my darkest hour of need. Why perish with the ship that springs a leak clean upon a reed? Give me new love, warm, palpitating, sweet when all the grace and beauty leave the old, when like a rose it withers at my feet or like a hearth grows cold. Give me new times bright with a prosperous cheer in place of old, tear-blotted burdened days. I hold a sunlit present far more dear and worthy of my praise. When the old deeds are threadbare and worn through and all too narrow for the broadening soul give me the fine, firm texture of the new, fair, beautiful and whole. End of Old and New Perfectness of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Perfectness All perfect things are saddening in effect. The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes, the matchless tinting on the royal rose, whose velvet leaf by no least floor is flecked. Love's supreme moment when the soul unchecked soars high as heaven and its best rapture knows. These hold a deeper pathos than our woes, since they leave nothing better to expect. Resistless change when powerless to improve can only maw, the gold will pale to gray. Nothing remains tomorrow as today. The lose will not seem quite so fate and love must find its measures of delight made less. Ah, how imperfect is all perfectness. End of Perfectness Attraction of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Attraction The meadow and the mountain with desire gazed on each other till a fierce unrest surged neath the meadow seemingly calm breast and all the mountain's fishes ran with fire. A mighty river rolled between them there. What could the mountain do but gaze and burn? What could the meadow do but look and yearn and gem its bosom to conceal despair? Their seething passion agitated space till low the lands a sudden earthquake shook. The river fled, the meadow leaped and took the leaning mountain in a close embrace. End of Attraction Gracia of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Gracia Nay, nay, Antonio, nay, thou shalt not blame her. Thou art my Gracia who hath so deserted me. Thou art my friend, but if thou dost defame her I shall not hesitate to challenge thee. Curse and forget her? So I might another one not so boundious natured or so fair. But she, Antonio, she was like no other. I curse her not, because she was so rare. She was made out of laughter and sweet kisses, not blood, but sunshine through her blue veins ran. Her soul spilled over with its wealth of blisses. She was too great for loving but a man. None but a God could keep so rare a creature. I blame her not for her inconstancy. When I recall each radiant smile and feature, I wonder she so long was true to me. Call her not false or fickle. I who love her do hold her not unlike the royal son, that all unmated roams the wide world over, and lights all worlds but lingers not with one. If she were lesser Goddess, more a woman, and so had dallied for a time with me, and then had left me, I who am but human, would slay her and her newer love maybe. But since she seeks Apollo, or another of those lost gods, and seeks him all in vain, and has loved me as well as any other of her men loves, why I do not complain. On the white throat of the useless passion that scorched my soul with its burning breath, I clutched my fingers in murderous fashion, and gathered them close in a grip of death. For why should I fan or feed with fuel, a love that showed me but blank despair? So my hold was firm, and my grasp was cruel, I meant to strangle it then and there. I thought it was dead, but with no warning it rose from its grave last night and came, and stood by my bed till the early morning, and over and over it spoke your name. Its throat was red where my hands had held it, it burned my brow with its scorching breath, and I said the moment my eyes beheld it, a love like this can know no death. For just one kiss that your lips have given in the lost and beautiful past to me, I would gladly barter my hopes of heaven and all the bliss of eternity. For never a joy are the angels keeping to lay at my feet in paradise, like that of into your strong arms creeping and looking into your love-lit eyes. I know in the way that sins are reckoned this thought is a sin of the deepest die, but I know too if an angel beckoned standing close by the throne on high, and you, down by the gates infernal, should open your loving arms and smile, I would turn my back on things supernal to lie on your breast a little while, for an hour you are mine completely, mine and body and soul my own. I would bear unending torches sweetly, with not a murmur and not a moan. A lighter sin or a lesser error might change through hope or fear divine, but there is no fear and hell has no terror to change or alter a love like mine. Recording by Joy Chan Perms of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Bleak weather Dear love, where the red lilies blossomed and grew, the white snows are falling, and all through the woods where I wandered with you the loud winds are calling, and the robin that piped to us tune upon tune neath the oak, you remember, or hilltop and forest has followed the dune dust December. He has left like a friend who is true in the sun and false in the shadows. He has found new delights in the land where he's gone, greener woodlands and meadows. Let him go, what care we? Let the snows shroud the lee, let it drift on the heather. We can sing through it all. I have you, you have me, and we'll laugh at the weather. The old year may die and a new year be born, that is bleaker and colder. It cannot dismay us, we dare it, we scorn, for our love makes us bolder. Ah, robin, sing loud on your far distantly, you friend in fair weather. But here is a song sung that's fuller of glee by two warm hearts together. End of Bleak Weather An answer of poems of passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. An answer. If all the year was summertime and all the aim of life was just to lilt on like a rhyme, then I would be your wife. If all the days were August days and crowned with golden weather, how happy then through green clad ways we too could stray together. If all the nights were moonlit nights and we had not to do, but just to sit and plan delights, then I would wed with you. If life was all a summer fate, its soberest pace at the glide, then I would choose you for my mate and keep you at my side. But winter makes full half the year and labour half of life and all the laughter and good cheer give place to wearing strife. Days will grow cold and moons wax old and then a heart that's true is far better than grace or gold and so my love adieu, I cannot wed with you. End of an answer. You will forget me of Poems of Passion. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan. Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox. You will forget me. You will forget me. The years are so tender find up the wounds which we think are so deep. This dream of our youth will fade out as the splendour fades from the skies when the sun sinks to sleep. The cloud of forgetfulness over and over will banish the last rosy colours away and the fingers of time will weave garlands to cover the sky which you think is a life mark today. You will forget me. The one boon you covet now above all things will soon seem no prize and the heart which you hold not in keeping to prove it true or untrue will lose worth in your eyes. The one drop today that you dream only wanting to fill your life cup to the brim soon will seem but a valueless might and the ghost that is haunting the aisles of your heart will pass out with the dream. You will forget me. We'll thank me for saying the words which you think time loves a new lay and the dirge he is playing will change for you soon to a livelier strain. I shall pass from your life I shall pass out forever and these hours we have spent will be sunk in the past. Youth buries its dead grief kills seldom or never and forgetfulness covers all sorrows at last. End of you will forget me. The farewell of Clarimond This LibriVox recordings in the public domain. Recording by Joy Chan Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox The Farewell of Clarimond Suggested by the Clarimond of Théophile Gautier Adieu, Romald but thou canst not forget me although no more I haunt thy dreams at night thy hungering heart forever must regret me and starve for those lost moments of delight. Nor shall avail thy priestly rights and duties nor fears of hell nor hopes of heaven beyond before the cross shall rise my fair form's beauties the lips, the limbs, the eyes of Clarimond like gall the wine sipped from the sacred chalice shall taste to one who knew my red mouth's bliss when youth and beauty dwelt in love's own palace and life flowed on in one eternal kiss through what strange ways I come, dear heart, to reach thee from viewless lands by paths no man ere trod I braved all fears, all dangers dared to teach thee a love more mighty than thy love of God Think not in all his kingdom to discover such joys, Romald, as ours when fierce yet fond I clasped thee kissed thee, crowned thee my one lover thou canst not find another, Clarimond I knew all arts of love he who possessed me possessed all women and could never tire a new life dawn for him who once caressed me satiety itself I set on fire in constancy I chained men died to win me kings cast by crowns for one hour on my breast and all the passionate tide of love within me I gave to thee, Romald work thou not blessed yet for the love of God thy hand hath riven our welded souls but not in prayer well conned not an ideally purchased peace of heaven canst thou forget those hours with Clarimond End of the farewell of Clarimond The Trier of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Jory Chan Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox The Trier We love but once the great gold orb of light from dawn to eventide doth cast his ray but the full splendour of his perfect might is reached but once throughout the life long day We love but once the waves with ceaseless motion do day and night plash on the pebbled shore but the strong tide of the resistless ocean sweeps in but one hour of the twenty-four We love but once a score of times per chance we may be moved in fancies fleeting fashion may treasure up a word, a tone, a glance but only once we feel the soul's great passion We love but once love walks with death and birth the saddest, the unkindest of the three and only once while we sojourn on earth can that strange trio come to you or me End of the Trier The Lost Garden of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Jory Chan Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox The Lost Garden There was a fair green garden sloping from the southeast side of the mountain ledge the earliest tint of the dawn came groping down through its paths from the day's dim edge The bluest skies and the reddest roses arched and varied its velvet sod and the glad bird sang as the soul supposes the angels sing on the hills of God I wandered there when my veins seemed bursting with life's rare rapture and keen delight and yet in my heart was a constant thirsting for something over the mountain height I wanted to stand in the blaze of glory that turned to crimson the peaks of snow and the winds from the west all breathed a story of realms and regions I longed to know I saw in the garden south side growing the brightest blossoms that breathe of June I saw in the east how the sun was glowing and the gold air shook with a wild bird's tune I heard the drip of a silver fountain and the pulse of a young laugh throbbed with glee but still I looked out over the mountain where unnamed wonders awaited me I came at last to the western gate that led to the path I longed to climb but a shadow fell on my spirit's straight way for closer to my side stood graveyard time I paused with feet that were feigned to linger hard by that garden's golden gate but time spoke pointing with one stern finger pass on, he said, for the day grows late and now on the chill grey cliffs I wander the heights received which I thought to find and the light seems dim on the mountain yonder when I think of the garden I left behind should I stand at last on its summit's splendour I know full well it would not repay for the fair lost tints of the dawn so tender that crept up over the age of day I would go back, but the ways are winding if ways there are to that land ensue for what man succeeds in ever finding a path to the garden of his lost youth but I think sometimes when the dune stars glisten that a rose sent duffs from far away and I know when I lean from the cliffs and listen that a young laugh breaks on the air like spray End of The Lost Garden Art and Heart of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Joy Chan Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Art and Heart Though critics may bow to art and I am its own true lover it is not art, but heart which wins the wide world over Though smooth be the heartless prayer no ear in heaven will mind it and the finest phrase falls dead if there is no feeling behind it Though perfect the players touch little if any he sways us unless we feel his heart throb through the music he plays us Though the poet may spend his life in skillfully rounding a measure unless he writes from a full warm heart he gives us little pleasure So it is not the speech which tells but the impulse which goes with the saying and it is not the words of the prayer but the yearning back of the praying it is not the artist's skill even though our soul comes stealing with a joy that is almost pain but it is the player's feeling and it is not the poet's song though sweeter than sweet bells chiming which thrills us through and through but the heart which beats under the rhyming and therefore I say again though I am art's own true lover that it is not art, but heart which wins the wide world over end of art and heart mockery of poems of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan poems of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox mockery Why do we grudge our sweet soul to the living whom God knows finds at best too much of gold 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 tomorrow speak of its woe through tears what do the dead care for the tender token the love the praise the flower offerings but palpitating living hearts are broken for want of just these things end of mockery as by fire of poems of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan poems of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox as by fire sometimes I feel so passionate a yearning for spiritual perfection here below this vigorous frame with healthful fervor burning seems my determined foe so actively it makes a stern resistance so cruelly sometimes at wage's war against a holy spiritual existence which I am striving for it interrupts my soul's intense devotions some hope it strangles of divine's birth with a swift rush of violent emotions which link me to the earth it is as if two mortal foes contended within my bosom in a deadly strife one for the loftier aims for soul's intended one for the earthly life and yet I know this very war within me which brings out all my willpower and control this very conflict at the last shall win me the loved and longed for goal the very fire which seems sometimes so cruel is the white light that shows me my own strength a furnace fed by the divine's fuel it may become at length ah when in the immortal ranks enlisted I sometimes wonder if we shall not find that not by deeds but by what we've resisted our places are assigned end of as by fire if I should die of poems of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan poems of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox if I should die Rondo if I should die how kind you all would grow in that strange hour I would not have one fur there are no words too beautiful to say of one who goes forever more away across that emming tide which has no flow with what new lustre my good deeds would glow if faults were mine no one would call them so or speak of me in ought but praised that day if I should die ah friends before my listening ear lies low while I can hear and understand bestow the gentle treatment and fond love I pray the lustre of whose late though radiant way will gild my grave with mocking light I know if I should die end of if I should die Miseleon's of poems of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan poems of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Miseleon's I am troubled tonight with a curious pain it is not of the flesh it is not of the brain nor yet of a heart that is breaking but down still deeper and out of sight in the place where the soul and the body unite there lies the scat of the aching they have been lovers in days gone by but the soul is fickle and longs to fly from the fettering Miseleon's and she tears at the bonds which are binding her so and pleads with the body to let her go but he will not yield compliance for the body loves as he loved in the past when he wedded the soul and he holds her fast and swears that he will not lose her that he will keep her and hide her away from her lover and for a day from the arms of death the seducer oh this is the strife that is wearying me the strife twicks a soul that would be free and a body that will not let her and I say to my soul be calm and wait for I tell ye truly that soon or late you surely shall drop each better and I say to the body be kind I pray but it's formed in spirit fashion and still through the hours of the solemn night I can hear my sad soul's plea for flight and my body's reply of passion End of Miseleon's Response of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Joy Chan Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Response I said this morning as I leaned and threw my shutters open to the spring's surprise Tell me, O Earth, how is it that in you year after year the same fresh feelings rise How do you keep your young exultant glee nor more those sweet emotions come to me I note through all your fishes how the tide of healthful life goes leaping as of old Your royal dawns retain their pomp and pride Your sunsets lose no atom of their gold How can this wonder be? My soul's fine ear leaned listening till a small voice answered near My day's laps never over in to-night My nights encroach not on the rites of dawn I rush not breathless after some delight I waste no grief for any pleasure gone My July noons burn not the entire year Heart harken well Yes, yes, go on, I hear I do not strive to make my sunsets gold pave all the dim and distant realms of space I do not bid my crimson dawns unfold to lend the midnight a fictitious grace I break no law, for all God's laws are good Heart has thou heard Yes, yes, and understood End of response Drought of Poems of Passion Why do we pity those who weep? The pain that finds a ready outlet in the flow of salt and bitter tears is blessed woe and does not need our sympathies The rain but fits the shorn field for new yield of grain while the red brazen skies the sun's fierce glow the dry hot winds that from the tropics blow do patch and wither the unsheltered plain The anguish that through long remorseless years looks out upon the world with no relief of sudden tempests or slow dripping tears the still, unuttered, silent wordless grief that ever moored off ache and ache and ache This is the sorrow wherewith hearts do break End of Drought of Poems of Passion Whoever was begotten by pure love and came desired and welcomed into life is of immaculate conception He whose heart is full of tenderness and truth who loves mankind more than he loves himself and cannot find room in his heart for hate may be another Christ We all may be the saviours of the world if we believe in the divinity which dwells in us and worship it and nail our grosser selves our tempers, greeds and our unworthy aims upon the cross who giveth love to all pays kindness for unkindness smiles for frowns and lends new courage to each fainting heart and strengthens hope and scatters joy abroad He too is a redeemer, son of God End of the Creed Progress of Poems of Passion Let there be many windows to your soul that all the glory of the universe may beautify it Not the narrow pain of one poor Creed can catch the radiant rays that shine from countless sources Tear away the blinds of superstition Let the light pour through fair windows broadest truth itself and high as God Why should the spirit peer through some priest-curtain orifice and grope along dim corridors of doubt when all the splendour from unfathomed seas of space might bathe it with the golden waves of love Sweep up the debris of decaying faiths Sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out beliefs and throw your soul wide open to the light of reason and knowledge Tune your ear to all the wordless music of the stars and to the voice of nature and your heart shall turn to truth and goodness as the plant turns to the sun A thousand unseen hands reach down to help you to their peace-crowned heights and all the forces of the firmament shall fortify your strength Be not afraid to thrust aside half-truths and grasp the whole End of progress My friend of poems of passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Joy Chan Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox My friend When first I looked upon the face of pain I shrank repelled as one shrinks from a foe who stands with dagger-poised as for a blow I was in search of pleasure and of gain I turned aside to let him pass In vain, he looked straight in my eyes and would not go Shake hands, he said, our paths are one and so we must be comrades on the way to his plane I felt the firm clasp of his hand on mine through all my veins that set a strengthening glow I straightaway linked my arm and his and lo! He led me forth to joys almost divine with God's great truths enriched me in the end and now I hold him as my dearest friend End of my friend Creation of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Joy Chan Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Creation The impulse of all love is to create God was so full of love in his embrace he clasped the empty nothingness of space and lo! the solar system! High in state the mighty sun sat so supreme and great with this same essence one smile of its face brought myriad forms of life forth race on race from insects up to men through love not hate all that is grand in nature and art sprang into being he who would build sublime and lasting works to stand at the test of time must inspiration draw from his full heart he who loveth widely well and much the secret holds of the true master touch End of Creation Red Carnations of Poems of Passion This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Joy Chan Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Red Carnations One time in Arcady's Fair Bowers they met a bright immortal band to choose their emblems from the flowers that made an Eden of that land sweet constancy with eyes of hope strayed down the garden path alone and gathered sprays of heliotrope to place in clusters at her zone true friendship plucked the ivy green forever fresh, forever fair in constancy with flippant mean the fading primrose chose to wear one moment love the rose paused by but beauty picked it for her hair love paced the garden with a sigh he found no fitting emblem there then suddenly he saw a flame a conflagration turned to bloom it even put the rose to shame both in its beauty and perfume he watched it and it did not fade he plucked it and it brighter grew in cold or heat all undismayed it kept its fragrance and its hue hear deathless love and passion sleep he cried embodied in this flower this is the emblem I will keep love wore carnations from that hour End of Red Carnations Life is too short of poems of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox Life is too short Life is too short for any vain regretting let dead delight bury its dead I say and let us go upon our way forgetting the joys and sorrows of each yesterday between the swift suns rising and its setting we have no time for useless tears or fretting Life is too short Life is too short for any bitter feeling time is the best avenger if we wait the years speed by and on their wings bear healing we have no room for anything like hate the solemn truth the low mound seem revealing that thick and fast about our feet are stealing life is too short life is too short for ought but high endeavor too short for spite but long enough for love and love lives on forever and forever it links the world that circle on above Tis God's first law the universe's lever in his vast realm the radiant soul sigh never life is too short end of life is too short a sculptor of perms of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan perms of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox a sculptor as the ambitious sculptor tireless lifts chisel and hammer to the block at hand before my half-formed character I stand imply the shining tools of mental gifts I'll cut away a huge unsightly side of selfishness and smooth to curves of grace the angles of ill temper and no trace shall my sure hammer leave of silly pride chip after chip must fall from vain desires and the sharp corners of my discontent be rounded into symmetry and lent great harmony by faith that never tires unfinished still I must toil on and on till the pale critic death shall say Tis done end of a sculptor beyond of perms of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan perms of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox beyond it seemeth such a little way to me lost to that strange country, the beyond and yet not strange for it has grown to be the home of those of whom I am so fond they make it seem familiar and most dear as journeying friends bring distant regions near so close it lies that when my sight is clear I think I almost see the gleaming strand I know I feel those who have gone from here come near enough sometimes to touch my hand I often think but for our veiled eyes we should find heaven right round about us lies I cannot make it seem a day to dread when from this dear earth I shall journey out to that still dearer country of the dead and join the lost ones so long dreamed about I love this world yet shall I love to go and meet the friends who wait for me I know I never stand above a beer and sea the seal of death set on some well-loved face but that I think one more to welcome me when I shall cross the intervening space between this land and that one over there one more to make the strange beyond seem fair and so for me there is no sting to death and so the grave has lost its victory it is but crossing with abated breath and white set face a little strip of sea to find the loved ones waiting on the shore more beautiful more precious than before end of beyond the saddest hour of poems of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan poems of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox the saddest hour the saddest hour of anguish and of loss is not that season of supreme despair when we can find no least light anywhere to gild the dread black shadow of the cross not in that luxury of sorrow when we sup on salt of tears and drink the gall of memories of days beyond recall of lost delights that cannot come again but when with eyes that are no longer wet we look out on the great wide world of men and smiling lean toward a bright tomorrow then backward shrink with sudden keen regret to find that we are learning to forget ah then we face the saddest hour of sorrow end of the saddest hour show me the way of poems of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan poems of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox show me the way show me the way that leads to the true life I do not care what tempests may assail me I shall be given courage for the strife I know my strength will not desert or fail me I know that I shall conquer in the fray show me the way show me the way up to a higher plane where body shall be servant to the soul I do not care what tides of woe or pain across my life their angry waves may roll if I but reach the end I seek someday show me the way show me the way and let me bravely climb above vain grievings for unworthy treasures above all sorrow that finds balm in time above small triumphs or belittling pleasures up to those heights where these things seem child's play show me the way show me the way to that calm perfect piece which springs from an inward consciousness of right to where all conflicts with the flesh shall cease and itself shall radiate with the spirit's light though hard the journey and the strife I pray show me the way end of show me the way my heritage of poems of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan poems of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox my heritage I into life so full of love was sent that all the shadows which fall on the way of every human being could not stay but fled before the light my spirit lent I saw the world through gold and crimson dyes men sighed and said those woezy hues will fade as you pass on into the glare and shade still beautiful the way seems to mine eyes they said you are too jubilant and glad the world is full of sorrow and of wrong full soon your lips shall breathe forth sighs not song the day wears on and yet I am not sad they said you love too largely and you must through wound on wound grow bitter to your kind they were false prophets day by day I find more cause for love and less cause for distrust they said too free you give your soul's rare wine the world will quough but it will not repay yet in the emptied flagons day by day true hearts pour back a nectar as divine thy heritage is it not love's estate look to it then and keep its soil well tilled I hold that my best wishes are fulfilled because I love so much and cannot hate end of my heritage resolve of perms of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan perms of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox resolve build on resolve and not upon regret the structure of thy future do not grope among the shadows of old sins but let thine own soul's light shine on the path of hope and dissipate the darkness waste no tears upon the blotted record of lost years but turn the leaf and smile oh smile to see the fair white pages that remain for thee pray not of thy repentance but believe the spark divine dwells in thee let it grow that which the up-reaching spirit can achieve the grand and all creative forces know they will assist and strengthen as the light lifts up the acorn to the oak tree's height thou hast but to resolve and lo God's whole great universe shall fortify thy soul end of resolve ateliasis of perms of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan perms of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox ateliasis I ateliasis saw the finest sight when early mornings banners were unfurled from high Olympus, gazing on the world the ancient gods once saw it with delight sad Zemita had in a single night removed her somber garments and mine eyes beheld a broided mantle in pale dyes thrown all her throbbing bosom sweet and clear there fell the sound of music on mine ear and from the south came Hermes he whose lyre one time appeased the great Apollo's ire the rescued maid Persephone by the hand he led to waiting Demeter and cheer and light and beauty once more blessed the land end of ateliasis courage of perms of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan perms of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox courage there is a courage, a majestic thing that springs forth from the brow of pain full-grown, manoeuvra-like and dares all dangers known and all the threshing future yet may bring crowned with the helmet of great suffering serene with that grand strength by martyrs shown when at the stake they die and make no moan and even as the flames leap up a hood to sing a courage so sublime and unafraid it wears its sorrows like a coat of mail and fate, the archer, passes by dismayed knowing his best barbed arrows needs must fail to pierce a soul so armoured and arrayed that death himself might look on it and quail end of courage solitude of perms of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan perms of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox solitude laugh and the world laughs with you weep and you weep alone for the sad old earth must borrow its mirth but has trouble enough of its own sing and the hills will answer sigh it is lost on the air the echoes bound to a joyful sound but shrink from voicing care rejoice and men will seek you grieve and they turn and go they want full measure of all your pleasure but they do not need your woe be glad and your friends are many be sad and you lose them all there are none to decline your netted wine but alone you must drink life's gall feast and your halls are crowded fast and the world goes by succeed and give and it helps you live but no man can help you die there is room in the halls of pleasure for a large and lordly train but one by one we must all fall on through the narrow aisles of pain end of solitude the year outgrows the spring of poems of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan poems of passion by Ella Wheeler-Wilcox the year outgrows the spring the year outgrows the spring it thoughts so sweet and cloths the summer with a new delight yet Weary leaves her langurs and her heat when cool brown autumn dawns upon his sight the tree outgrows the bud's suggestive grace and feels new pride in blossoms fully blown but even this to deeper joy gives place when bending bows neath lushing burdens grown life's rarest moments are derived from change the heart outgrows old happiness, old grief and suns itself in feelings new and strange the most enduring pleasure is but brief our tastes our needs are never twice the same nothing contents us long however dear the spirit in us like the grosser fame outgrows the garments which at war last year change is the watchword of progression when we tire of well-worn ways we seek for new this restless craving in the souls of men spurs them to climb and seek the mountain view so let who will erect an altar shrine to meek-browed constancy and sing her praise unto enlivening change I shall build mine who lends new zest and interest to my days end of the year outgrows the spring the beautiful land of nod of perms of passion this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Joy Chan perms of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox the beautiful land of nod come cuddle your head on my shoulder dear your head like the golden rod and we will go sailing away from here to the beautiful land of nod away from life's hurry and flurry and worry away from earth's shadows and gloom to a world of fair weather will float off together where roses are always in bloom just shut your eyes and fold your hands your hands like the leaves of a rose and we will go sailing to those fair lands that never an atlas shows on the north and the west they are bounded by rest on the south and the east by dreams it is the country ideal where nothing is real but everything only seems just drop down the curtains of your dear eyes those eyes like a bright blue bell and we will sail out under starlit skies to the land where the fairies dwell down the river of sleep our bark shall sweep till it reaches that mystical isle which no man hath seen but where all have been and there we will pause a while I will croon you a song as we float along to that shore that is blessed of God then ho for that fair land we're off for that rare land that beautiful land of nod end of the beautiful land of nod the tiger of poems of passion this Librirox recordings in the public domain recording by Joy Chan poems of passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in the still jungle of the censors lay a tiger soundly sleeping till one day a bold young hunter chanced to come that way how calm he said that splendid creature lies I long to rouse him into swift surprise the well-aimed arrow shot from amorous eyes and lo the tiger rouses up and turns a coal of fire his glowing eyeball burns his mighty frame with savage hunger yearns he crouches for a spring his eyes dilate alas bold hunter what shall be thy fate thou canst not fly it is too late too late