Poems of Life. By Ella Wheeler Wilcox The Border Edition. London: Siegle, Hill and Co., [n.d.] 75 p.  6" x 4 1/2" Note: One copy has inscription dated "1st January 1914"

Click Here to see all Editions and Covers

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.

CONTENTS:

1. Life
2. A Song of Life
3. Life and I
4. Two Sunsets
5. Unrest
6. "Artist's Life"
7. Nothing but Stones
8. Inevitable
9. The Ocean of Song
10. Gethsemane
11. Dust-Sealed
12. "Advice"
13. Over the Banisters
14. Momus, God of Laughter
15. The Past
16. "It Might Have Been"
17. The Sonnet
18. Secrets
19. Uselessness
20. Will
21. Winter Rain
22. Applause
23. Life
24. The Story
25. Let Them Go
26. The Engine
27. Nothing New
28. Helena
29. Nothing Remains
30. The Two Glasses
31. What we Need
32. Is it Done?
33. Burdened
34. In the Long Run
35. A Song
36. To Marry or Not to Marry?