From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (November 5, 1850–October
30, 1919) 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". Her autobiography, The Worlds and I, was
published in 1918, a year before her death.
Life
Ella Wheeler was born in 1850 on a farm in rural Johnstown, Wisconsin, east of Janesville, the youngest of four
children. The family soon moved to north of Madison.
She started writing poetry at a very early age, and was well known
as a poet in her own state by the time she graduated from high
school. When about 28 years of age, she married Robert Wilcox. They
had one child, a son, who died shortly after birth. Not long after
their marriage, they both became interested in Theosophy, New Thought, and Spiritualism.
Early in their married life, they promised each other that
whoever went first through death would return and communicate with
the other. Robert
Wilcox died in 1916, after over thirty years of marriage. She
was overcome with grief, which became ever more intense as week
after week went without any message from him. It was at this time
that she went to California to see the Rosicrucian astrologer Max Heindel, still
seeking help in her sorrow, still unable to understand why she had
had no word from her Robert. This is how she tells of this
meeting:
"In talking with Max Heindel, the leader of the Rosicrucian
Philosophy in California, he made very clear to me the effect of
intense grief. Mr. Heindel assured me that I would come in touch
with the spirit of my husband when I learned to control my sorrow.
I replied that it seemed strange to me that an omnipotent God could
not send a flash of his light into a suffering soul to bring its
conviction when most needed. Did you ever stand beside a clear pool
of water, asked Mr. Heindel, and see the trees and skies repeated
therein? And did you ever cast a stone into that pool and see it
clouded and turmoiled, so it gave no reflection? Yet the skies and
trees were waiting above to be reflected when the waters grew calm.
So God and your husband's spirit wait to show themselves to you
when the turbulence of sorrow is quieted".
Several months later, she composed a little mantra or affirmative
prayer which she said over and over "I am the living
witness: The dead live: And they speak through us and to us: And I
am the voice that gives this glorious truth to the suffering world:
I am ready, God: I am ready, Christ: I am ready, Robert.".
Wilcox made efforts to teach occult things to the world. Her works, filled
with positivism, were popular in the New Thought Movement and by 1915 her
booklet, What I Know About New Thought had a distribution
of 50,000 copies, according to its publisher, Elizabeth
Towne.
The following statement expresses Wilcox's unique blending of
New Thought, Spiritualism, and a Theosophical belief in reincarnation:
"As we think, act, and live here today, we built the structures
of our homes in spirit realms after we leave earth, and we build
karma for future lives, thousands of years to come, on this earth
or other planets. Life will assume new dignity, and labor new
interest for us, when we come to the knowledge that death is but a
continuation of life and labor, in higher planes".
Poetry
A popular poet rather than
a literary poet, in her poems
she expresses sentiments of cheer and optimism in plainly written,
rhyming verse. Her world view is expressed in the title of her poem
"Whatever Is—Is Best", suggesting an echo of Alexander Pope's
"Whatever is, is right."
None of Wilcox's works were included by F. O.
Matthiessen in The Oxford Book of American Verse, but
Hazel Felleman chose no fewer than thirteen of her poems for
Best Loved Poems of the American People, while Martin Gardner
selected "Solitude" and "The Winds of Fate" for Best Remembered
Poems.
She is frequently cited in anthologies of bad poetry, such as
The Stuffed Owl: An Anthology of Bad Verse and Very
Bad Poetry. Sinclair Lewis indicates Babbitt's lack
of literary sophistication by having him refer to a piece of verse
as "one of the classic poems, like 'If' by Kipling, or
Ella Wheeler Wilcox's 'The Man Worth While.'" The latter opens:
- It is easy enough to be pleasant,
- When life flows by like a
song,
- But the man worth while is one who will smile,
- When everything goes dead
wrong.
Her most famous lines open her poem "Solitude":
- Laugh and the world laughs with you,
- Weep, and you weep alone;
- The good old earth must borrow its mirth,[1]
- But has trouble enough of its
own.
"The Winds of Fate" is a marvel of economy, far too short to
summarize. In full:
- One ship drives east and another drives west
- With the selfsame winds that blow.
- 'Tis the set of the sails,
- And Not the gales,
- That tell us the way to go.
- Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate;
- As we voyage along through life,
- 'Tis the set of a soul
- That decides its goal,
- And not the calm or the strife.
Legacy
Her quote "Love lights more fires than hate
extinguishes" is inscribed on a paving slab in Jack Kerouac
Alley in San
Francisco (next to the City Lights Bookstore).
"Solitude"
"Solitude" was first published in the February 25, 1883 issue of
The New
York Sun. The inspiration for the poem came as she was
travelling to attend the Governor's inaugural ball in Madison,
Wisconsin. On her way to the celebration, there was a young
woman dressed in black sitting across the aisle from her. The woman
was crying. Miss Wheeler sat next to her and sought to comfort her
for the rest of the journey. When they arrived, the poet was so
depressed that she could barely attend the scheduled festivities.
As she looked at her own radiant face in the mirror, she suddenly
recalled the sorrowful widow. It was at that moment that she wrote
the opening lines of "Solitude":
-
- "Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
- "Weep, and you weep alone."
She sent the poem to the Sun and received $5 for her effort. In
May 1883, "Solitude" appeared in Wheeler's book, Poems of
Passion.
Autobiography
Her final words in her autobiography The Worlds and I:
"From this mighty storehouse (of God, and the hierarchies of
Spiritual Beings ) we may gather wisdom and knowledge, and receive
light and power, as we pass through this preparatory room of earth,
which is only one of the innumerable mansions in our Father's
house. Think on these things".
Death
Ella Wheeler Wilcox died of cancer in 1919, a week before her
69th birthday.
Influence
Ella Wheeler Wilcox's name provided the unlikely inspiration for
doggerel by the English humorist Richard
Murdoch, which he set to the opening bars of Alexandre
Luigini's Ballet egyptien.
Works
- Book (Autobiography)
- The Worlds and I, New York: George II Doran Company,
c1918 www
- Poetry
- The Invisible Helpers in Cosmopolitan 57 (October
1914): 578-579 www
- The Voice of the Voiceless www
- Disarmament www
- Roads to God www
- To An Astrologer www
- Secret Thoughts www
- An Ambitious Man www
- An Englishman and Other Poems www
- Hello, Boys! www
- The Kingdom of Love www
- Maurine and other Poems www
- New Thought Pastels www
- Poems of Cheer www
- Poems of Experience www
- Poems of Optimism www
- Poems of Passion www
- Poems of Power www
- Poems of Progress www
- Poems of Purpose www
- Poems of Sentiment www
- A Woman of the World www
- Yesterday www
- Poems of Reflection, 1905 copyright, M. A. Donahue
& Co. (publisher)
External
links
References
- ^
some versions indicate the words are "For the brave old earth must
borrow its mirth" or "For the sad old earth must borrow its
mirth"
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
