Yesterdays, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Transcribed from the 1910 Gay and Hancock edition David Price, email [email protected]

YESTERDAYS

by
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

GAY AND HANCOCK, LTD.
12 & 13, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
LONDON
1910

[All rights reserved]

CONTENTS

Foreword
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,