Custer

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Title: Custer, and Other Poems.
Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Release Date: January 23, 2007 [EBook #20427]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CUSTER, AND OTHER POEMS. ***
Produced by Thierry Alberto, David T. Jones and the Online?Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
CUSTER
AND
OTHER POEMS
BY
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
Author of?"Poems of Passion," "Maurine," "Poems of Pleasure,"?"How Salvator Won," "The Beautiful Land of Nod,"?"An Erring Woman's Love," "Men, Women and Emotions," Etc.
CHICAGO:
W. B. CONKEY COMPANY.
Published 1896,
By
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
Preface.
"Let such teach others, who themselves excel,?And censure freely who have written well."
--POPE.
[Transcriber's Note: BOLD characters are denoted by enclosing them with =...= and ITALIC characters are denoted by enclosing them with _..._ ]
=CONTENTS=
=PAGE=
The World's Need 7
High Noon 8
Transformation 10
Thought-Magnets 12
Smiles 13
The Undiscovered Country 15
The Universal Route 16
Earthly Pride 17
Unanswered Prayers 18
Thanksgiving 20
A Maiden to Her Mirror 22
The Kettle 23
Contrasts 25
Thy Ship 26
The Tryst 28
Life 31
A Marine Etching 32
The Duel 33
"Love Thyself Last" 35
Christmas Fancies 37
The River 40
Sorry 42
The Old Wooden Cradle 44
Ambition's Trail 46
The Traveled Man 47
Uncontrolled 49
The Tulip Bed at Greeley Square 50
Will 52
To An Astrologer 53
The Tendril's Faith 55
The Times 56
The Question 57
Sorrow's Uses 58
If 59
Which Are You? 60
The Creed To Be 62
Music in the Flat 64
Inspiration 67
The Wish 68
Three Friends 69
You Never Can Tell 71
Here and Now 72
Unconquered 74
All That Love Asks 75
Does It Pay 77
Sestina 78
The Optimist 80
The Pessimist 81
The Hammock's Complaint 82
Life's Harmonies 83
Preaching vs. Practice 84
An Old Man to His Sleeping Young Bride 85
I Am 87
Two Nights 89
Preparation 91
Custer 93
=The World's Need=
So many gods, so many creeds,?So many paths that wind and wind,?While just the art of being kind,?Is all the sad world needs.
=High Noon=
Time's finger on the dial of my life?Points to high noon! and yet the half-spent day?Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark,?Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end.
To those who burn the candle to the stick,?The sputtering socket yields but little light.?Long life is sadder than an early death.?We cannot count on raveled threads of age?Whereof to weave a fabric. We must use?The warp and woof the ready present yields?And toil while daylight lasts. When I bethink?How brief the past, the future still more brief,?Calls on to action, action! Not for me?Is time for retrospection or for dreams,?Not time for self-laudation or remorse.?Have I done nobly? Then I must not let?Dead yesterday unborn to-morrow shame.?Have I done wrong? Well, let the bitter taste?Of fruit that turned to ashes on my lip?Be my reminder in temptation's hour,?And keep me silent when I would condemn.?Sometimes it takes the acid of a sin?To cleanse the clouded windows of our souls?So pity may shine through them.
Looking back,?My faults and errors seem like stepping-stones?That led the way to knowledge of the truth?And made me value virtue; sorrows shine?In rainbow colors o'er the gulf of years,?Where lie forgotten pleasures.
Looking forth,?Out to the western sky still bright with noon,?I feel well spurred and booted for the strife?That ends not till Nirvana is attained.
Battling with fate, with men and with myself,?Up the steep summit of my life's forenoon,?Three things I learned, three things of precious worth?To guide and help me down the western slope.?I have learned how to pray, and toil, and save.?To pray for courage to receive what comes,?Knowing what comes to be divinely sent.?To toil for universal good, since thus?And only thus can good come unto me.?To save, by giving whatsoe'er I have?To those who have not, this alone is gain.
=Transformation=
She waited in a rose-hued room;?A wanton-hearted creature she,?But beautiful and bright to see?As some great orchid just in bloom.
Upon wide cushions stretched at ease?She lolled in garments filmy fine,?Which but enhanced each rounded line;?A living picture, framed to please.
A bold electric eye of light?Leered through its ruddy screen of lace?And feasted on her form and face?As some wine-crimsoned rou�� might.
From wall and niche, nude nymph beguiled?Fair goddesses of world-wide fame,?But Psyche's self was put to shame?By one who from the cushions smiled.
Exotic blossoms from a vase?Their sweet narcotic breath exhaled;?The lights, the objects round her paled--?She lost the sense of time and place.
She seemed to float upon the air,?Untrammeled, unrestricted, free;?And rising from a vapory sea?She saw a form divinely fair.
A beauteous being in whose face?Shone all things sweet and true and good.?The innocence of maidenhood,?The motherhood of all