Transcribed from the 1914 Gay and Hancock edition by DavidPrice,

POEMS OF CHEER

BY
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

GAY AND HANCOCK, LTD.
12 and 13, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
LONDON
1914

[All rights reserved]

p. vThis Volume contains the poems publishedunder the title “Poems of Life,” with the exceptionof about half a dozen, which appear in my other volumes.  Ihave also added a few new verses.

Any edition of my Poems published in Great Britain by any firmexcept Messrs. Gay and Hancock is pirated and not authentic.

Ella WheelerWilcox.

April 12th, 1910.

p.viI 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 theheights
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 angelswalked.

Here are no sounds of discord—noprofane
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 mygrave,
Than in the outer world of greed and gain
To sit upon a royal throne and reign.

p.viiCONTENTS