Be Glad, and Your Friends are Many;
Laugh, and the World Laughs With You
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Two
photos of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)
1.
Solitude
Laugh, and the world laughs
with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must
borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will
answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful
sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek
you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all
your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are
many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,-
There are none to decline your
nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.
Feast, and your halls are
crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps
you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of
pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all
file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
2. The Year Outgrows the Spring
The year outgrows the spring it
thought so sweet,
And clasps the summer with a
new delight,
Yet wearied, leaves her
languors and her heat
When cool-browed autumn dawns
upon his sight.
The tree outgrows the bud’s
suggestive grace,
And feels new pride in
blossoms fully blown.
But even this to deeper joy
gives place
When bending boughs ’neath
blushing burdens groan.
Life’s rarest moments are
derived from change.
The heart outgrows old
happiness, old grief,
And suns itself in feelings
new and strange;
The most enduring pleasure is
but brief.
Our tastes, our needs, are
never twice the same.
Nothing contents us long,
however dear.
The spirit in us, like the grosser
frame,
Outgrows the garments which it
wore last year.
Change is the watchword of
Progression. When
We tire of well-worn ways we
seek for new.
This restless craving in the
souls of men
Spurs them to climb, and seek
the mountain view.
So let who will erect an altar
shrine
To meek-browed Constancy, and
sing her praise.
Unto enlivening Change I shall
build mine,
Who lends new zest and
interest to my days.
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The above poems are reproduced
from the book “Poems of Passion”, by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, which is available online in Project Gutenberg. They were
also published in the March 2016 edition of “The Aquarian Theosophist”, pp. 15-16.
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