Elizabeth Wheeler Wilcox

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Ella Wheeler was born in 1850 on a farm in Johnstown, Wisconsin, east of Janesville, the youngest of four children. The family soon moved 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.  In 1884, she married Robert Wilcox of Meriden, Connecticut, where the couple lived before moving to New York City and then to Granite Bay in the Short Beach section of Branford, Connecticut. The two homes they built on Long Island Sound, along with several cottages, became known as Bungalow Court, and they would hold gatherings there of literary and artistic friends. 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. Wilcox made efforts to teach occult things to the world. Her works, filled with positive thinking, 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. 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". Ella Wheeler Wilcox died of cancer on October 30, 1919 in Short Beach.  Source

Life's Scars

They say the world is round, and yet

I often think it square,

So many little hurts we get

From corners here and there.

But one great truth in life I've found,

While journeying to the West-

The only folks who really wound

Are those we love the best.

 

The man you thoroughly despise

Can rouse your wrath, 'tis true;

Annoyance in your heart will rise

At things mere strangers do;

But those are only passing ills;

This rule all lives will prove;

The rankling wound which aches and thrills

Is dealt by hands we love.

 

The choicest garb, the sweetest grace,

Are oft to strangers shown;

The careless mien, the frowning face,

Are given to our own.

We flatter those we scarcely know,

We please the fleeting guest,

And deal full many a thoughtless blow

To those who love us best.

 

Love does not grow on every tree,

Nor true hearts yearly bloom.

Alas for those who only see

This cut across a tomb!

But, soon or late, the fact grows plain

To all through sorrow's test:

The only folks who give us pain

Are those we love the best.

Published:

1896

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Modernism

Anthology Years:

2022

Themes:

Death & Loss

Doubt & Fear

Faith & Hope

Love & Relationships

Literary Devices:

Alliteration

the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words appearing in succession

End Rhyme

when a poem has lines ending with words that sound the same

Internal Rhyme

A rhyme involving a word in the middle of a line and another at the end of the line or in the middle of the next.

Irony

the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect

Repetition

a recurrence of the same word or phrase two or more times