Poems of Passion

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox - 1883

Oh, you who read some song that I have sung,
What know you of the soul from whence it sprung?
Dost dream the poet ever speaks aloud
His secret thought unto the listening crowd?
Go take the murmuring sea-shell from the shore:
You have its shape, its color and no more.
It tells not one of those vast mysteries
That lie beneath the surface of the seas.
Our songs are shells, cast out by-waves of thought;
Here, take them at your pleasure; but think not
You've seen beneath the surface of the waves,
Where lie our shipwrecks and our coral caves

.

Contents

1. Poems of Passion - Preface

Poems of Passion: Love's Language Impatience Communism The Common Lot Individuality Friendship after Love Queries Upon the Sand Reunited What Shall We Do? "The Beautiful Blue Danube" Answered Through the Valley But One Guilo The Duet Little Queen Wherefore Delilah Love Song Time and Love Change Desolation Isaura Not Quite the Same From the Grave A Waltz-Quadrille Beppo Tired The Speech of Silence Conversion Love's Coming Old and New Perfectness Bleak Weather Attraction Gracia Ad Finem New and Old The Trio An Answer You Will Forget Me The Farewell of Clarimonde

*Miscellanous Poems The Lost Garden Art and Heart As By Fire If I Should Die Misalliance Response Drougth The Creed Progress My Friend Red Carnations Life is Too Short A Sculptor Creation Beyond The Saddest Hour Show Me the Way My Heritage Resolve At Eleusis Courage Solitude The Year Outgrows the Spring The Beautiful Land of Nod The Tiger Only a Simple Rhyme I Will be Worthy of It Sonnet Let Me Lean Hard Penalty Sunset The Wheel of the Breast A Meeting Earnestness A Picture Mockery Twin-Born Floods Regret A Fable