Poems of Cheer

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Preface

This Volume contains the poems published under the title "Poems of Life," with the exception of about half a dozen, which appear in my other volumes. I have also added a few new verses.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
April 12th, 1910.

I step across the mystic border-land,
And look upon the wonder-world of Art.
How beautiful, how beautiful its hills!
And all its valleys, how surpassing fair!

The winding paths that lead up to the heights
Are polished by the footsteps of the great.
The mountain-peaks stand very near to God:
The chosen few whose feet have trod thereon
Have talked with Him, and with the angels walked.

Here are no sounds of discord--no profane
Or senseless gossip of unworthy things -
Only the songs of chisels and of pens,
Of busy brushes, and ecstatic strains
Of souls surcharged with music most divine.
Here is no idle sorrow, no poor grief
For any day or object left behind -
For time is counted precious, and herein
Is such complete abandonment of Self
That tears turn into rainbows, and enhance
The beauty of the land where all is fair.
Awed and afraid, I cross the border-land.
Oh, who am I, that I dare enter here
Where the great artists of the world have trod -
The genius-crowned aristocrats of Earth?
Only the singer of a little song;
Yet loving Art with such a mighty love
I hold it greater to have won a place
Just on the fair land's edge, to make my grave,
Than in the outer world of greed and gain
To sit upon a royal throne and reign.

Poems of Cheer

1. Worth while
2. The House of Life
3. A Song of Life
4. Prayer
5. In the Long Run
6. As you go through Life
7. Two Sunsets
8. Unrest
9. Artist's life
10. Nothing But Stones
11. Inevitable
12. The Ocean of Song
13. It might have been
14. Momus, God of Laughter
15. I Dream
16. The Sonnet
17. The Past
18. A Dream
19. Uselessness
20. Will
21. Winter Rain
22. Life
23. Burdened
24. Let them go
25. Five Kisses
26. Retrospection
27. Helena
28. Nothing Remains
29. Comrades
30. What Gain?
31. To the West
32. The Land of Content
33. Warning
34. After the Battles are over
35. And they are dumb
36. Night
37. All for me
38. Into Space
39. Through Dim Eyes
40. The Punished
41. Half Fledged
42. The Year
43. The Unattained
44. In the crowd
45. Life and I
46. Guerdon
47. Snowed Under
48. Leudemanns-on-the-river
49. Little Blue Hood
50. No Spring
51. Midsummer
52. A Reminiscence
53. A Girl's Faith
54. Two
55. Slipping Away
56. Is it done?
57. A Leaf
58. Aesthetic
59. Poems of the Week
60. Ghosts
61. Fleeing away
62. All mad
63. Hidden Gems
64. By-and-bye
65. Over the May Hill
66. Foes
67. Friendship
68. Two sat down
69. Bound and free
70. Aquileia
71. Wishes for a little girl
72. Romney
73. My Home
74. To marry or not to marry?
75. An Afternoon
76. River and Sea
77. What happens?
78. Possession