“India - The land of Vedas, the remarkable works contain not only religious ideas for a perfect life,
but also facts which science has proved true. Electricity, radium, electronics,
airship, all were known to the seers who founded the Vedas.” | Source: Poems of Pleasure (1897) and Maurine and Other Poems (1888) |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox was an American author and poet. Her best-known work was Poems of Passion. Her most enduring work was "Solitude", which contains the lines
"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone".
Ella Wheeler Wilcox's prolific excellence lay in her positive approach and optimistic nature. She had started penning down poetry from an early age and continued to do so till her death. Her poems reflected her optimism - her belief that hope would triumph over despair and good would overcome evil. For Wilcox, the severity and roughness of life did not exist. Wilcox also was a strong believer of reincarnation. She believed that the negativity that life presented was just an opportunity for man to turn into a blessing. Wilcox played part in the establishment of the American Rosicrucian movement and was also appointed as its first Supreme Council officer. Her term as the Supreme Council officer lasted until her death. |
Poetry:
The Invisible Helpers in Cosmopolitan 57 (October 1914)
The Voice of the Voiceless
Disarmament
Roads to God
To An Astrologer
Secret Thoughts
An Ambitious Man
An Englishman and Other Poems
Hello, Boys!
The Kingdom of Love
Maurine and other Poems
New Thought Pastels
Poems of Cheer
Poems of Experience
Poems of Optimism
Poems of Passion
Poems of Power
Poems of Progress
Poems of Purpose
Poems of Sentiment
A Woman of the World
Yesterday
Poems of Reflection || www.SherawaliMaa.com
Further reading;
Source: https://mypoeticside.com/poets/ella-...r-wilcox-poems
Ella Wheeler Wilcox Biography
Throughout the history of poetry writing, it is fair to say, there have been so many poets who were genuinely unpleasant people. Perhaps being a famous, even revered, writer can lead someone into self-centredness at best. At worst they become so obsessed with getting it right, with producing the next “great work”, that they can easily forget that they are a human being first, and a writer somewhere down the list of things to be.
But here we have someone quite different. Ella Wheeler Wilcox was never described as one of the great poets in America but she was popular and read by millions. She did, in fact, write for magazines and other periodicals in between publishing a good number of books of her poems and prose. All the time she was doing this she was a genuinely nice person and wrote poetry because it pleased her to do so, and of course it pleased her that others found her work agreeable.
There was something of the mystic about her as well. She published a book called Poems of Power which was judged to contain some works with New Thought qualities and clearly outlined her leanings towards Spiritualism. Oriental, particularly Indian, influences can be seen in her work and this attitude to life inspired her to write. Where she got these influences from is hard to establish, having been born and raised in a small town in Wisconsin in 1850. She moved to Connecticut in 1884 as a married woman and already she had become a very popular poet.
As a syndicated writer for the Hearst group of newspapers her prose on New Thought lines reached wide audiences and was well received. Having come from a family who were all interested in the composition of verse Ella had led a very simple, uncomplicated life were the most important things in her life were visiting her girlfriends and riding horses. She dreamed her dreams, like most young women, but it seemed her overriding ambition was to just be kind and be well thought of.
Strangely enough, for a young woman of only 23, she wrote eminently and at great length in support of total abstinence from alcohol. These were the prohibition years between 1865 and 1875 and she published two volumes – Shells and Drops of Water – which contained more than 175 poems opposing alcoholic drinks, the makers of those drinks and the vendors. As the years went by her output was considerable and her legions of admirers grew all the time. It was said at the time that she wrote for the same reason that a bird sings. It came absolutely naturally to her.
The death of her husband in 1884 was a terrible blow but she felt happier when she received messages from him via the spiritual world that she so believed in. She did war work in France right up to Armistice Day. Some would think of her as a religious woman but she described her faith as “the art of being kind”, and she practiced it every day right up to her death on October 30, 1919, at her home in Short Beach, Connecticut.
If one were to choose a piece of work that Ella Wheeler Wilcox produced that encapsulates her philosophy on life then Attainment probably just about fits the bill. It is one of her shorter poems, and is reproduced below:
poem
It has been said that the world was a good place with Ella Wheeler Wilcox a part of it and, reading those words, it is hard to disagree.