Yesterdays
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Ella Wheeler Wilcox >> Yesterdays
YESTERDAYS
Contents:
An Old Heart
Warp and Woof
So Long
If I could only weep
Why should we sigh
A wakeful night
If one should dive deep
Two
No comfort
It does not matter
The under-tone
Worth living
More fortunate
He will not come
Worn out
Rondeau
Trifles
Courage
The other
Mad
Which
Love's burial
Incomplete
On rainy days
Geraldine
Only in dreams
Circumstance
Simple creeds
The bridal eve
Good night
No place
Found
A man's reverie
When my sweet lady sings
Spectres
Only a line
Parting
Estranged
Before and after
An empty crib
The arrival
Go back
Why I love her
Discontent
A dream
The night
New Year
Reverie
The law
Spirit of a Great Control
Noon
The search
A man's good-bye
At the hop
Met
Returned birds
A crushed leaf
A curious story
Jenny Lind
Life's key
Bridge of prayer
New year
Deceitful calm
Un Rencontre
Burned out
Only a glove
Reminders
A dirge
Not anchored
The new love
An east wind
Cheating time
Only a slight flirtation
What the rain saw
After
Our petty cares
The ship and the boat
Come near
A suggestion
A fisherman's baby
Content and happiness
The Cusine
I wonder why
A woman's hand
Presentiment
Two rooms
Three at the opera
A strain of music
Smoke
An autumn day
Wishes
The play
As we look back
Why
Listen
Together
One night
Lost nation
The captive
No song
Two friends
I didn't think
A burial
Their faces
The lullaby
Mirage
Alone in the house
An old bouquet
At the bridal
Best
FOREWORD
This little volume might be called 'Echoes from the land of youthful
imaginings'; or 'Ghosts of old dreams.' It has been compiled at the
request of Messrs. Gay and Hancock (my only authorised publishers in
Great Britain), and contains verses written in my early youth, and
which never before (with the exception, perhaps, of three or four)
have been placed in book form.
Given the poetical temperament, and a lonely environment, with few
distractions, youthful imagination is sure to express itself in
mournful wails and despairing moans. Such wails and moans will be
found to excess in this little book, and will serve to show better
than any amount of common-sense reasoning, how fleeting are the
sorrows of youth, and how slight the foundation on which the young
build towers of despair.
In the days when these verses were written, each little song
represented a few dollars (to my emaciated purse), and so the
slightest experience of my own, or of any friend, with every passing
mood, every trivial happening, was utilised by my imaginative and
thrifty muse.
That the writer has always possessed robust health, and has lived to
a good age, is proof positive that the verses are not all expressions
of personal experiences, since no human being could have borne such
continual agonies and retained life and reason.
All the verses in the book were written while I bore the name of Ella
Wheeler, and are quite inconsistent with the ideas and philosophy of
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
August 1910.
AN OLD HEART
How young I am! Ah! heaven, this curse of youth
Doth mock me from my mirror with great eyes,
And pulsing veins repeat the unwelcome truth,
That I must live, though hope within me dies.
So young, and yet I have had all of life.
Why, men have lived to see a hundred years,
Who have not known the rapture, joy, and strife
Of my brief youth, its passion and its tears.
Oh! what are years? A ripe three score and ten
Hold often less of life, in its best sense,
Than just a twelvemonth lived by other men,
Whose high-strung souls are ardent and intense.
But having seen all depths and scaled all heights,
Having a heart love thrilled, and sorrow wrung,
Knowing all pains, all pleasures, all delights,
Now I would die--but cannot, being young.
Nothing is left me, but supreme despair;
The bitter dregs that tell of wasted wine.
Come furrowed brow, dull eye, and frosted hair,
Companions fit for this old heart of mine.
WARP AND WOOF
Through the sunshine, and through the rain
Of these changing days of mist and splendour,
I see the face of a year-old pain
Looking at me with a smile half tender.
With a smile half tender, and yet all sad,
Into each hour of the mild September
It comes, and finding my life grown glad
Looks down in my eyes, and says 'Remember.'
Says 'Remember,' and points behind
To days of sorrow, and tear-wet lashes;
When joy lay dead and hope was blind,
And nothing was left but dust and ashes.
Dust and ashes and vain regret,
Flames fanned out, and the embers falling.
But the sun of the saddest day must set,
And hope wakes ever with Springtime's calling.
With Springtime's calling the pulses thrill;
And the heart is tuned to a sweeter measure.
For never a green Spring crossed the hill
That came not laden with some new pleasure.
Some new pleasure that brings content;
And the heart looks up with a smile of gladness,
And wonders idly when sorrow went
Out of the life that seemed all sadness.
That seemed all sadness, and yet grew bright
With colours we thought could tinge it never.
Yet I think the pain though out of sight,
Like the warp of the carpet, is there for ever.
There for ever, and by and by
When the woof wears thin, or draws asunder,
We see the sombre threads that lie
Intertwining and twisting under.
Twisting under and binding so
The brighter threads that they may not sever.
Thus the pain of a year ago
Must stay a part of my life for ever.
SO LONG
The dawn grows red in the eastern sky,
(Long, so long is the day,)
And I lean from my lattice and sigh and sigh,
As I watch the night fog creeping by
And vanish over the bay.
The thrush soars up, over green clad hills,
(The day is long, so long;)
Like liquid silver his music spills,
And ever it quivers, and runs, and trills
In a glad sweet burst of song.
Under my window there blooms a rose,
(How long a day can be.)
And I lean and whisper what no soul knows
Of my heart's sorrows and secret woes,
And the red rose sighs, 'Ah me!'
A ship sails into the waiting bay,
(The day is long, alack,)
But what would that matter to me, I pray
If the ship that sailed out yesterday
Should never more come back.
The summer sun rides high and clear,
(The day is long, so long,)
How long it must be ere it grows to a year--
How deep the sorrow that finds no tear,
But only a wail of song.
IF I COULD ONLY WEEP
If I could only weep,
I think sweet help with my salt tears would come,
To ease the cruel pain that is so dumb,
And will not let me sleep.
Down in my heart, down deep
A poisoned arrow burns. It would fall out
And tears would wash the wound, I have no doubt,
If I could only weep.
Maybe my pulse would leap,
And bring one thrill back, of a vanished day,
Instead of throbbing in this dull, dead way,
If I could only weep.
O silent Fates who steep
Nectar or gall for us through all the years,
Take what thou wilt, but give me back my tears,
And let me weep and weep.
WHY SHOULD WE SIGH
Why should we sigh o'er a summer that's dead--
Let us think of the summer to be.
It always better to look ahead,
For the rose will come again just as red
And just as fair to see.
Why should we weep o'er a pleasure past--
Let us look for the pleasure to be.
New shells on the shore by new waves are cast;
Let us prize each new joy more than the last,
And laugh if the old joy flee.
What folly to die for a love that was--
Let us live for the one to be.
For time is passing, and will not pause;
How foolish the shore were it sad because
One wave ebbed out to sea.
Then let us not sing of a year that is fled--
Though dear its memory be:
For though summer and pleasure and love seem dead,
Love will be sweet, and the rose will be red
When they blossom for you and me.
A WAKEFUL NIGHT
In the dark and the gloom when winds were fretting
Like restless children worn out with play,
I said to my heart, 'This task, forgetting--
Is harder now than it is by day.
For a hungry love that hides from the light,
Like a tiger steals forth, and is bold at night.'
The wind wailed low like a woman weeping;
Deeper and darker the dense gloom grew.
And, oh! for the old, sweet nights of sleeping,
When dreams were happy, and love was true.
Before the stars from heaven went out
In a sudden blackness of dread and doubt.
The wind wailed loud, like a madman shrieking,
And I said to my heart, 'Oh! vain, vain strife;
We cannot forget, and the peace we are seeking
Can only be won at the end of life.
For see! like a lurid and living spark
The eyes of the tiger shine through the dark.'
The wind sighed low like a sick man dying,
And the dawn crept silently over the hill.
And I said, 'O heart! there is no use trying,
We must REMEMBER, and love on still.'
And the tiger, appeased with its midnight feast,
Fled as the dawn rose red in the East.
IF ONE SHOULD DIVE DEEP
Once more on the beach with the shifting clouds o'er me
(Like the friends of a day),
And the sea all unchanged, like a true friend before me,
How the years flow away,
How the summers go by.
The shifting clouds o'er me, the shifting sands under;
Why need it seem strange,
Why need I feel bitter, and why should I wonder
That hearts, too, should change
As the summers go by.
Down here is the path where we wandered together,
'Neath the midsummer moon.
Her love was sweet as the sweet summer weather,
And left us as soon,
And the summers go by.
The bathers laugh loud in the surf over yonder.
If one should dive deep,
And rise not--no more need he suffer or ponder
O'er losses, or weep,
But sink low and sleep
While the summers go by.
TWO
As I sat in my opera box last night
In a glimmer of gems and a blaze of light,
And smiling that all might see,
This curious thought came all unsought--
That there were TWO of me.
One who sat in her silk and lace,
With gems on her bosom and smiles on her face,
And hot-house blossoms in her hair,
While her fan kept time to the swaying rhyme
Of the lilting opera air.
And one who sat in the dark somewhere,
With her wan face hid by her falling hair,
And her hands clasped over her eyes;
And the sickening pain of heart and brain
Breathed out in long-drawn sighs.
One in the sheen of her opera suit;
And one who was swathed from head to foot,
In crepe of the blackest dye.
One hiding her heart and playing a part,
And one with her mask thrown by.
But over the voice of the singer there,
The one who sat with a rose in her hair,
Seemed ever to hear the moan
Of the one who kept in the dark and wept
With her desolate heart alone.
NO COMFORT
O mad with mirth are the birds to-day
That over my head are winging.
There is nothing but glee in the roundelay
That I hear them singing, singing.
On wings of light, up, out of sight--
I watch them airily flying.
What do they know of the world below,
And the hopes that are dying, dying?
The roses turn to the sun's warm sky,
Their sweet lips red and tender;
Oh! life to them is a dream of bliss,
Of love, and passion, and splendour.
What know they of the world to-day,
Of hearts that are silently breaking;
Of the human breast, and its great unrest,
And its pitiless aching, aching?
They send me out into Nature's heart
For help to bear my sorrow,
Nothing of strength can she impart,
No peace from her can I borrow.
Her rose-red June and her billing tune,
Her birds and blossoms only,
Mocked at the grief that seeks relief,
And leave me lonely--lonely.
If I might stand on the treacherous sand,
And know I was sinking, sinking,
While the moaning sea sang a dirge for me,--
Why, that were comfort, I'm thinking.
IT DOES NOT MATTER
It does not matter very much to me
Through what strange ways my pathway now may lead;
Since I know that it runs away from thee,
I give it little heed.
It does not matter if in calm or strife,
There ebb or flow for me the future's tide.
I had but one great longing in my life,
And that has been denied.
It does not matter if I stand or fall,
Or walk with kings, or with the rank and file;
Life's loftiest aims and best ambitions all
Were centred in thy smile.
It does not matter what the world may say:
I feel no interest in its blame or praise.
I only know we dwell apart to-day,
And shall through endless days.
It does not matter. For my restless heart
Is numb to sorrow, or to pleasure's touch.
Since it must be that we two drift apart,
Why, nothing matters much.
THE UNDER-TONE
In the dull, dim dawn of day I heard
The twitter and thrill of a brown-backed bird,
As he sat and sang in the leafless tree,
A herald of beautiful days to be.
But the minor running under the strain
Went to my heart with a sudden pain,
For never so sad a sound I heard
As the troubled thrill of the brown-backed bird.
Not in the wearisome wash of waves,
With moaning murmur of wrecks and graves,
Not in the weird winds' wildest wail,
Not in the roar of the rushing gale.
Not in the sob of dying years
Are sounds so solemn and full of tears.
O herald of days that are green and glad,
Why was your morning song so sad?
Have you a secret hidden away,
Of sorrow to come with a coming day?
Folded under a folded leaf,
Lies there trouble and bitter grief?
The shadow of death, and tears, and gloom
Coming to me when roses bloom?
Will the beautiful days I long for so
Hold like your song a strain of woe?
What is the secret you hide from me
O herald of days that are to be?
And why was that desolate minor moan
Lurking under your gladdest tone?
WORTH LIVING
I know not what the future may hold,
Or how to others it seems,
But I know my skies have held more gold
Than I used to find in my dreams.
Though the whole world sings of hopes death chilled,
In grateful truth I say,
That my best hopes have been fulfilled,
And more than fulfilled to-day.
Though oft my arrow I aim at the sun
To see it fall into the sand,
Yet just as often some work I have done
Is better than I have planned.
I do not always grasp the pleasure
For which I reach, maybe;
But quite as frequently over-measure
Is given by joy to me.
To-morrow may bring a grief behind it
That will thoroughly change my mood;
But we only can speak of a thing as we find it--
And I have found life good.
MORE FORTUNATE
I hold that life more fortunate by far
That sits with its sweet memories alone
And cherishes a joy for ever flown
Beyond the reach of accident to mar.
(Some joy that was extinguished like a star)
Than that which makes the prize so much its own
That its poor commonplacenesses are shown;
(Which in all things, when viewed too closely, are.)
Better to mourn a blossom snatched away
Before it reached perfection, than behold
With dry, unhappy eyes, day after day,
The fresh bloom fade, and the fair leaf decay.
Better to lose the dream, with all its gold,
Than keep it till it changes to dull grey.
HE WILL NOT COME
Take out the blossom in your hair abloom,
No more it seemeth beautiful, or bright,
And sickening is its subtly sweet perfume--
He will not come to-night.
Take off the necklace with its sparkling gem,
And rings that glow and glitter in the light,
And fling them in the case that waits for them--
He will not come to-night.
Take off the robe a little while ago
You chose, to make you fairer in his sight;
'Tis ten o'clock. So late you can but know
He will not come to-night.
He will not come. God grant you strength and grace,
For never more upon your mortal sight
Shall dawn a glimpse of that beloved face
That did not come to-night.
He will not come. And through the shadowed years,
The perfume of that blossom that you wore
Shall stir the fount of salt and bitter tears--
For one who comes no more.
WORN OUT
I saw a young heart in the grasp of pain;
With bruised breast, and broken, bleeding wing
Shipwrecked on hopeless love's tempestuous main,
Lay the poor tortured thing.
It pulsed with all the anguish of despair;
It ached with all a fond heart's awful power;
Yet I, who stood unhurt above it there,
Envied its lot that hour.
I, who have wasted all the sacred, deep
Emotions of my soul in spendthrift fashion,
Until no sorrow now can make me weep--
No joy stir me with passion.
I, who have scattered here and there the gold
Of my heart's store, until I spent the whole;
Yet unto each so little gave to hold,
That I enriched no soul.
I, who have sold the birthright of sweet tears,
And no more feel a thrill in pulse or brain,
Would gladly have exchanged my tasteless years
For one salt hour of pain.
Weep on, ye mourners. Glory in the cross
Of some great grief. Thank God you do not know
The greater grief that comes but with the loss
Of power to suffer woe.
RONDEAU
As you forgot I may forget,
When summer dews cease to be wet.
When whippoorwills disdain the night,
When sun and moon are no more bright,
And all the stars at midnight set.
When jay birds sing, and thrushes fret,
When snowfalls come in flakes of jet,
When hearts that shelter love are light,
I may forget.
When mortal life no cares beset,
When April brings no violet,
When wrong no longer wars with right,
When all hope's ships shall heave in sight,
And memory holds no least regret,
I may forget.
TRIFLES
Only a spar from a broken ship
Washed in by a careless wave;
But it brought back the smile of a vanished lip,
And his past peered out of the grave.
Only a leaf that an idle breeze
Tossed at her passing feet;
But she seemed to stand under the dear old trees,
And life again was sweet.
Only the bar of a tender strain
They sang in days gone by;
But the old love woke in her heart again,
The love they had sworn should die.
Only the breath of a faint perfume
That floated up from a rose;
But the bolts slid back from a marble tomb,
And I looked on a dear dead face.
Who vaunts the might of a human will,
When a perfume or a sound
Can wake a Past that we bade lie still,
And open a long closed wound?
COURAGE
Whether the way be dark or light
My soul shall sing as I journey on,
As sweetly sing in the deeps of night
As it sang in the burst of the golden dawn.
Nothing can crush me, or silence me long,
Though the heart be bowed, yet the soul will rise,
Higher and higher on wings of song,
Till it swims like the lark in a sea of skies.
Though youth may fade, and love grow cold,
And friends prove false, and best hopes blight,
Yet the sun will wade in waves of gold,
And the stars in glory will shine at night.
Though all earth's joys from my life are missed,
And I of the whole world stand bereft,
Yet dawns will be purple and amethyst,
And I cannot be sad while the seas are left.
For I am a part of the mighty whole;
I belong to the system of life and death.
I am under the law of a Great Central,
And strong with the courage of love and faith.
THE OTHER
All alone with my heart to-night
I sit, and wonder, and sigh.
What is she like, is she dark, or light,
This other woman who has the right
To love him better than I?
We never have spoken her name, we two;
There was no need somehow,
But she lives, and loves, and her heart is true;
From the very first this much I knew,
So why should it hurt me now.
I fancy her tall, and I think her fair,
Oh! fairer than I by half.
With sweet, calm eyes, and a wealth of hair,
And a heart as perfectly free from care
As is her silvery laugh.
She loves rich jewels that flash in the light,
And revels in costly lace,
And first in the morning, and last at night
She kisses one ring on her finger white;
(How came those tears on my face?)
She has all best things to make life sweet:
Youth, and beauty, and gold,
And a love that renders it quite complete.
(I wonder why from my head to my feet
I feel so deathly cold?)
Yet in all the store of her great delight
(And she has so much, so much)
She cannot be gladder than I, in the bright
Sweet smile he gave her when he said good night--
And his warm hand's close, kind touch.
I must put out the light and go to bed;
I wonder would she care
If she knew, when I knelt with low bowed head,
I prayed for her, but that I said
His name the last in my prayer?
MAD
Could I but hear you laugh across the street,
Though I, or mine, shared nothing in your glee,
Could I taste that one drop of bitter sweet,
'Twere more than life to me.
If I might see you coming through the door,
Though with averted face and smileless eye,
Were I allowed that little boon, no more,
Then I were glad to die.
But oh, my God! this living day on day,
Stripped of the only joy your starved heart had,
Shut in a prison world and forced to stay--
Why that way souls go mad!
To-day I heard a woman say the earth,
All blossom garlanded, was fair to see.
I laughed with such intensity of mirth,
The woman shrank from me.
Fair? Why, I see the blackness of the tomb
Where'er I turn, and grave mould on each brow;
And grinning faces peer out of the gloom--
Good God! I AM mad now.
WHICH
We are both of us sad at heart,
But I wonder who can say
Which has the harder part,
Or the bitterer grief to-day.
You grieve for a love that was lost
Before it had reached its prime;
I sit here and count the cost
Of a love that has lived its time.
Your blossom was plucked in its May,
In its dawning beauty and pride;
Mine lived till the August day,
And reached fruition and died.
You pressed its leaves in a book,
And you weep sweet tears o'er them.
Dry eyed I sit and look
On a withered and broken stem.
And now that all is told,
Which is the sadder, pray,
To give up your dream with its gold,
Or to see it fade into grey?
LOVE'S BURIAL
See him quake and see him tremble,
See him gasp for breath.
Nay, dear, he does not dissemble,
This is really Death.
He is weak, and worn, and wasted,
Bear him to his bier.
All there is of life he's tasted--
He has lived a year.
He has passed his day of glory,
All his blood is cold,
He is wrinkled, thin, and hoary,
He is very old.
Just a leaf's life in the wild wood,
Is a love's life, dear.
He has reached his second childhood
When he's lived a year.
Long ago he lost his reason,
Lost his trust and faith--
Better far in his first season
Had he met with death.
Let us have no pomp or splendour,
No vain pretence here.
As we bury, grave, yet tender,
Love that's lived a year.
All his strength and all his passion,
All his pride and truth,
These were wasted, spendthrift fashion,
In his fiery youth.
Since for him life holds no beauty
Let us shed no tear,
As we do the last sad duty--
Love has lived a year.
INCOMPLETE
The summer is just in its grandest prime,
The earth is green and the skies are blue;
But where is the lilt of the olden time,
When life was a melody set to rhyme,
And dreams were so real they all seemed true?
There is sun on the meadow, and blooms on the bushes,
And never a bird but is mad with glee;
But the pulse that bounds, and the blood that rushes,
And the hope that soars, and the joy that gushes,
Are lost for ever to you and me.
There are dawns of amber and amethyst;
There are purple mountains, and pale pink seas
That flush to crimson where skies have kist;
But out of life there is something missed--
Something better than all of these.
We miss the faces we used to know,
The smiling lips and the eyes of truth.
We miss the beauty and warmth and glow
Of the love that brightened our long ago,
And ah! we miss our youth.
ON RAINY DAYS
On rainy days old dreams arise,
From graves where they have lonely lain;
With wan white cheeks and mournful eyes,
They press against the window pane.
One dream is bolder than the rest:
She enters at the door and stays,
A welcome yet unbidden guest
On rainy days.
On rainy days, my dream and I
Turn back the hands of memory's books:
We sup on pleasures long gone by--
We drink of unforgotten brooks;
We ransack garrets of the Past,
We sing old songs, we play old plays;
While hurrying Time looks on aghast,
On rainy days.
On rainy days, my ghostly dreams
Come clothed in garments like the mist,
But through that vapoury veiling, gleams
The lustrous eyes my lips have kissed.
A radiant head leans on my heart,
We walk in well-remembered ways;
But oh! the sorrow when we part,
On rainy days.
GERALDINE
Just as the sun went bathing in a sea
Of liquid amber, flecked with caps of gold, I told
The sweet old story unto Geraldine, my Queen,
Who long hath made the whole of life for me.