Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. She wrote many volumes of romantic verse, often tinged with eroticism, the most successful one being Poems of Passion (1883.)
Born in Johnstown Center, Wisconsin, Wilcox completed a novel before she was 10, and later wrote at least two poems a day. After an unproductive year at the University of Wisconsin in 1867, she dedicated her life to writing poetry and fiction. Her early poems appeared in Gilded Age periodicals including Peterson’s Magazine and Arthur’s Home Magazine.
Wilcox’s poetry was distinguished by a sentimental approach to spiritualistic, metaphysical, and pseudo-erotic subjects. The first of her many volumes of verse was Drops of Water (1872.) Her popular reputation was ensured when one publisher rejected Poems of Passion (1883) for “immorality.” Another publishing house immediately accepted the work and sold sixty thousand copies in two years.
Wilcox produced more verses laced with platitudes and profundities. They were collected in such volumes as Men, Women, and Emotions (1893,) Poems of Pleasure (1888,) Poems of Sentiment (1906,) Gems (1912,) and World Voices (1918.) She wrote fiction, including Mal Moulée (1885,) A Double Life (1890,) Sweet Danger (1892,) and A Woman of the World (1904.)
Wilcox contributed essays and poetry to periodicals such as Ladies’ Home Journal, Munsey’s Magazine, Woman’s Home Companion, and Good Housekeeping.
A student of Madame Helena Blavatsky’s New Thought Movement and Theosophy, Wilcox was known for her flamboyant personality. Her Story of a Literary Career (1905) and The World and I (1918) were autobiographical.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I think of death as some delightful journey that I shall take when all my tasks are done.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Dying, Death
All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Love, Friendship, Friends and Friendship
Back on its golden hinges
The gate of Memory swings,
And my heart goes into the garden
And walks with the olden things.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Memory
The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I prayed for riches and achieved success,
All that I touched turned into gold. Alas!
My cares were greater, and my peace was less
When that wish came to pass.
I prayed for glory; and heard my name
Sung by sweet children and by hoary men.
But ah! the hurts, the hurts that came with fame!
I was not happy then.
I prayed for love, and had my soul’s desire,
Through quivering heart and body and through brain
There swept the flame of its devouring fire;
And there the scars remain.
I prayed for a contented mind. At length
Great light upon my darkened spirit burst,
Great peace fell on me, also, and great strength.
Oh! had that prayer been first!
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Prayer
So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Kindness
Say you are well, or all is well with you,
And God shall hear your words and make them true.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Attitude
There is new strength, repose of mind, and inspiration in fresh apparel.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Praise, Business
There’s one sad truth in life I’ve found
While journeying east and west –
The only folks we really wound
Are those we love the best.
We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest,
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Love, Hurting, Relationships
It is easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows by like a song. But the man worthwhile is the one who can smile, when everything goes dead wrong. For the test of the heart is troubled, And it always comes with the years. And the smiles that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through tears.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Courage, Adversity, Bravery, Attitude
He who leads
Must then be strong and hopeful as the dawn
That rises unafraid and full of joy
Above the blackness of the darkest night.
He must be kind to every living thing;
Kind as the Krishna, Buddha and the Christ,
And full of love for all created life.
Oh, not in war shall his great prowess lie,
Nor shall he find his pleasure in the chase.
Too great for slaughter, friend of man and beast,
Touching the borders of the Unseen Realms
And bringing down to earth their mystic fires
To light our troubled pathways, wise and kind
And human to the core, so shall he be,
The coming leader of the coming time.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Leadership
Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe. No path is wholly rough.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, the headstones thicken along the way; and life grows sadder, but love grows stronger for those who walk with us day by day.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Love
There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Soul, Fate, Determination, Goals, Destiny, Chance, Perseverance
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.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Prayer
One ship sails east and another sails west
With the self-same winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sail and not the gale
Which determines the way they go.
As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life,
Tis the act of the soul that determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Goals
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Persistence
Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you first get to know who you are and are willing to work with a power that is greater than ourselves to do it.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Adversity, Work
The two kinds of people on earth I mean
Are the people who lift, and the people who lean.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
It is easy enough to be virtuous When nothing tempts you to stray; When without or within No voice of sin Is luring your soul away. But it is only a negative virtue until it is tried by fire. For the soul that is worth the treasures of the earth is the soul that resists desire.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Virtue
Day’s sweetest moments are at dawn.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The splendid discontent of God
With chaos, made the world…
And from the discontent of man
The world’s best progress springs.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
With every deed you are sowing a seed, though the harvest you may not see.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Results
‘Tis the set of the sail that decides the goal, and not the storm of life.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Education
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.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Punctuality, Laughter, Friendship
You like buttercups, dewy sweet,
And crocuses, framed in snow;
I like roses, born of the heat,
And the red carnation’s glow.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Flowers
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
And etched on vacant places
Are half-forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Christmas
With care, and skill, and cunning art, She parried Time’s malicious dart, And kept the years at bay, Till passion entered in her heart and aged her in a day!
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Topics: Aging, Age
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