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                           POEMS OF PLEASURE

      [Illustration: Ella Wheeler Wilcox; signature and portrait]




                          POEMS OF PLEASURE.

                                  BY

                         ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

                               AUTHOR OF

           “POEMS OF PASSION.” “MAURINE.” “MAL MOULEE” ETC.

                               CHICAGO:

                         W. B. CONKEY COMPANY.

                                 1897.

                                 1888.
                             Copyright By
                         BELFORD CLARKE & CO.

                                 1892.
                             Copyright By
                        MORRILL, HIGGINS & CO.
                         All rights reserved.

                                 1893.
                             Copyright By
                         W. B. CONKEY COMPANY.




         CONTENTS.


                                       PAGE.

Part I. Passional                         7

Part II. Philosophical                   51

Part III. Miscellaneous                  91




         PASSIONAL.




         POEMS OF PLEASURE.




         SURRENDER.


    Love, when we met, ’twas like two planets meeting.
      Strange chaos followed; body, soul, and heart
    Seemed shaken, thrilled, and startled by that greeting.
      Old ties, old dreams, old aims, all torn apart
    And wrenched away, left nothing there the while
      But the great shining glory of your smile.

    I knew no past; ’twas all a blurred, bleak waste;
      I asked no future; ’twas a blinding glare.
    I only saw the present: as men taste
      Some stimulating wine, and lose all care,
    I tasted Love’s elixir, and I seemed
      Dwelling in some strange land, like one who dreamed.

    It was a godlike separate existence;
      Our world was set apart in some fair clime.
    I had no will, no purpose, no resistance;
      I only knew I loved you for all time.
    The earth seemed something foreign and afar,
      And we two, sovereigns dwelling in a star!

    It is so sad, so strange, I almost doubt
      That all those years could be, before we met.
    Do you not wish that we could blot them out?
      Obliterate them wholly, and forget
    That we had any part in life until
      We clasped each other with Love’s rapture thrill?

    My being trembled to its very center
      At that first kiss. Cold Reason stood aside
    With folded arms to let a grand Love enter
      In my Soul’s secret chamber to abide.
    Its great High Priest, my first love and my last,
      There on its altar I consumed my past.

    And all my life I lay upon its shrine
      The best emotions of my heart and brain,
    Whatever gifts and graces may be mine;
      No secret thought, no memory I retain,
    But give them all for dear Love’s precious sake;
      Complete surrender of the whole I make.




         THE BIRTH OF THE OPAL.


    The Sunbeam loved the Moonbeam,
      And followed her low and high,
    But the Moonbeam fled and hid her head,
      She was so shy--so shy.

    The Sunbeam wooed with passion;
      Ah, he was a lover bold!
    And his heart was afire with mad desire
      For the Moonbeam pale and cold.

    She fled like a dream before him,
      Her hair was a shining sheen,
    And oh, that Fate would annihilate
      The space that lay between!

    Just as the day lay panting
      In the arms of the twilight dim,
    The Sunbeam caught the one he sought
      And drew her close to him.

    But out of his warm arms, startled
      And stirred by Love’s first shock,
    She sprang afraid, like a trembling maid,
      And hid in the niche of a rock.

    And the Sunbeam followed and found her,
      And led her to Love’s own feast;
    And they were wed on that rocky bed,
      And the dying Day was their priest.

    And lo! the beautiful Opal--
      That rare and wondrous gem--
    Where the moon and sun blend into one,
      Is the child that was born to them.




         THE DIFFERENCE.


    Passion is what the sun feels for the earth
    When harvests ripen into golden birth.

    Lust is the hot simoon whose burning breath
    Sweeps o’er the fields with devastating death.

    Passion is what God felt, the Holy One,
    Who loved the world so, He begot his Son.

    Lust is the impulse Satan peering in
    To Eden had, when he taught Eve to sin.

    One sprang from light, and one from darkness grew
    How dim the vision that confounds the two!




         TWO LOVES.


    The woman he loved, while he dreamed of her,
      Danced on till the stars grew dim,
    But alone with her heart, from the world apart,
      Sat the woman who loved him.

    The woman he worshiped only smiled,
      When he poured out his passionate love.
    But the other somewhere, kissed her treasure most rare,
      A book he had touched with his glove.

    The woman he loved betrayed his trust,
      And he wore the scars for life;
    And he cared not, nor knew, that the other was true;
      But no man called her his wife.

    The woman he loved trod festal halls,
      While they sang his funeral hymn,
    But the sad bells tolled, ere the year was old,
      For the woman who loved him.




         THE WAY OF IT.


    This is the way of it, wide world over,
    One is beloved, and one is the lover,
      One gives and the other receives.
    One lavishes all in a wild emotion,
    One offers a smile for a life’s devotion,
      One hopes and the other believes,
    One lies awake in the night to weep,
    And the other drifts off in a sweet sound sleep.

    One soul is aflame with a godlike passion,
    One plays with love in an idler’s fashion,
      One speaks and the other hears.
    One sobs, “I love you,” and wet eyes show it,
    And one laughs lightly, and says “I know it,”
      With smiles for the other’s tears.
    One lives for the other and nothing beside,
    And the other remembers the world is wide.

    This is the way of it, sad earth over,
    The heart that breaks is the heart of the lover,
      And the other learns to forget.
    “For what is the use of endless sorrow?
    Though the sun goes down, it will rise to-morrow;
      And life is not over yet.”
    Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other,
    That passionate Love is Pain’s own mother.




         ANGEL OR DEMON.


    You call me an angel of love and of light,
      A being of goodness and heavenly fire,
    Sent out from God’s kingdom to guide you aright,
      In paths where your spirits may mount and aspire.
    You say that I glow like a star on its course,
    Like a ray from the altar, a spark from the source.

    Now list to my answer; let all the world hear it,
      I speak unafraid what I know to be true:
    A pure, faithful love is the creative spirit
      Which makes women angels! I live but in you.
    We are bound soul to soul by life’s holiest laws;
    If I am an angel--why you are the cause.

    As my ship skims the sea, I look up from the deck,
      Fair, firm at the wheel shines Love’s beautiful form,
    And shall I curse the barque that last night went to wreck,
      By the Pilot abandoned to darkness and storm?
    My craft is no stauncher, she too had been lost--
    Had the wheelman deserted, or slept at his post.

    I laid down the wealth of my soul at your feet
      (Some woman does this for some man every day).
    No desperate creature who walks in the street,
      Has a wickeder heart than I might have, I say,
    Had you wantonly misused the treasures you won,
    --As so many men with heart riches have done.

    This fire from God’s altar, this holy love flame,
      That burns like sweet incense forever for you,
    Might now be a wild conflagration of shame,
      Had you tortured my heart, or been base or untrue.
    For angels and devils are cast in one mold,
    Till love guides them upward, or downward, I hold.

    I tell you the women who make fervent wives
      And sweet tender mothers, had Fate been less fair,
    Are the women who might have abandoned their lives
      To the madness that springs from and ends in despair.
    As the fire on the hearth which sheds brightness around,
    Neglected, may level the walls to the ground.

    The world makes grave errors in judging these things,
      Great good and great evil are born in one breast.
    Love horns us and hoofs us--or gives us our wings,
      And the best could be worst, as the worst could be best.
    You must thank your own worth for what I grew to be,
    For the demon lurked under the angel in me.




         DAWN.


    Day’s sweetest moments are at dawn;
    Refreshed by his long sleep, the Light
    Kisses the languid lips of Night,
    Ere she can rise and hasten on.
    All glowing from his dreamless rest
    He holds her closely to his breast,
    Warm lip to lip and limb to limb,
    Until she dies for love of him.




         PEACE AND LOVE.


    There are two angels, messengers of light,
      Both born of God, who yet are bitterest foes.
      No human breast their dual presence knows.
    As violently opposed as wrong and right,
    When one draws near, the other takes swift flight
      And when one enters, thence the other goes.
      Till mortal life in the immortal flows,
    So must these two avoid each other’s sight.
    Despair and hope may meet within one heart,
    The vulture may be comrade to the dove!
    Pleasure and Pain swear friendship leal and true:
    But till the grave unites them, still apart
    Must dwell these angels known as Peace and Love.
    For only Death can reconcile the two.




         THE INSTRUCTOR.


    Not till we meet with Love in all his beauty,
      In all his solemn majesty and worth,
    Can we translate the meaning of life’s duty,
      Which God oft writes in cypher at our birth.

    Not till Love comes in all his strength and terror,
      Can we read other’s hearts; not till then know
    A wide compassion for all human error,
      Or sound the quivering depths of mortal woe.

    Not till we sail with him o’er stormy oceans,
      Have we seen tempests; hidden in his hand
    He holds the keys to all the great emotions;
      Till he unlocks them, none can understand.

    Not till we walk with him on lofty mountains,
      Can we quite measure heights. And, oh, sad truth!
    When once we drink from his immortal fountains,
      We bid farewell to the light heart of youth.

    Thereafter our most perfect day will borrow
      A dimming shadow from some dreaded night.
    So great grows joy it merges into sorrow,
      And evermore pain tinctures our delight.




         BLASE.


    The world has outlived all its passion,
      Its men are inane and blase,
    Its women mere puppets of fashion;
      Life now is a comedy play.
    Our Abelard sighs for a season,
      Then yields with decorum to fate.
    Our Heloise listens to reason,
      And seeks a new mate.

    Our Romeo’s flippant emotion
      Grows pale as the summer grows old;
    Our Juliet proves her devotion
      By clasping--a cup filled with gold.
    Vain Anthony boasts of his favors
      From fair Cleopatra the frail,
    And the death of the sorceress savors
      Less of asps than of ale.

    With the march of bold civilization,
      Great loves and great faiths are down-trod,
    They belonged to an era and nation
      All fresh with the imprint of God.
    High culture emasculates feeling,
      The over-taught brain robs the heart,
    And the shrine now where mortals are kneeling
      Is a commonplace mart.

    Our effeminate fathers and brothers
      Keep carefully out of life’s storm,
    From the ladylike minds of our mothers
      We are taught that to feel is “bad form.”
    Our worshipers now and our lovers
      Are calmly devout with their brains,
    And we laugh at the man who discovers
      Warm blood in his veins.

    But you, O twin souls, passion-mated,
      Who love as the gods loved of old,
    What blundering destiny fated
      Your lives to be cast in this mold?
    Like a lurid volcanic upheaval,
      In pastures prosaic and gray,
    You seem with your fervors primeval,
      Among us to-day.

    You dropped from some planet of splendor,
      Perhaps as it circled afar,
    And your constancy, swerveless and tender,
      You learned from the course of that star.
    Fly back to its bosom, I warn you--
      As back to the ark flew the dove--
    The minions of earth will but scorn you,
      Because you can love.




         THE SEA-BREEZE AND THE SCARF.


    Hung on the casement that looked o’er the main,
      Fluttered a scarf of blue;
    And a gay, bold breeze paused to flatter and tease
      This trifle of delicate hue.
    “You are lovelier far than the proud skies are,”
      He said with a voice that sighed;
    “You are fairer to me than the beautiful sea,
      Oh, why do you stay here and hide?

    “You are wasting your life in that dull, dark room
      (And he fondled her silken folds),
    O’er the casement lean but a little, my Queen,
      And see what the great world holds.
    How the wonderful blue of your matchless hue,
      Cheapens both sea and sky--
    You are far too bright to be hidden from sight,
      Come, fly with me, darling--fly.”

    Tender his whisper and sweet his caress,
      Flattered and pleased was she,
    The arms of her lover lifted her over
      The casement out to sea.
    Close to his breast she was fondly pressed,
      Kissed once by his laughing mouth;
    Then dropped to her grave in the cruel wave
      While the wind went whistling south.




         THREE AND ONE.


    Sometimes she seems so helpless and so mild,
      So full of sweet unreason and so weak,
      So prone to some capricious whim or freak;
    Now gay, now tearful, and now anger-wild,
    By her strange moods of waywardness beguiled
      And entertained, I stroke her pretty cheek,
      And soothing words of peace and comfort speak;
    And love her as a father loves a child.

    Sometimes when I am troubled and sore pressed
      On every side by fast advancing care,
      She rises up with such majestic air,
    I deem her some Olympian goddess-guest,
    Who brings my heart new courage, hope, and rest;
      In her brave eyes dwells balm for my despair,
      And then I seem, while fondly gazing there,
    A loving child upon my mother’s breast.

    Again, when her warm veins are full of life,
      And youth’s volcanic tidal wave of fire
      Sends the swift mercury of her pulses higher,
    Her beauty stirs my heart to maddening strife,
    And all the tiger in my blood is rife;
      I love her with a lover’s fierce desire,
      And find in her my dream, complete, entire,
    Child, Mother, Mistress--all in one word--Wife.




         INBORN.


    As long as men have eyes wherewith to gaze,
            As long as men have eyes.
    The sight of beauty to their sense shall be
    As mighty winds are to a sleeping sea
            When stormy billows rise.
    And beauty’s smile shall stir youth’s ardent blood
    As rays of sunlight burst the swelling bud;
            As long as men have eyes wherewith to gaze.

    As long as men have words wherewith to praise,
            As long as men have words,
    They shall describe the softly-moulded breast,
    Where Love and Pleasure make their downy nest,
            Like little singing birds;
    And lovely limbs, and lips of luscious fire,
    Shall be the theme of many a poet’s lyre,
            As long as men have words wherewith to praise.

    As long as men have hearts that long for homes,
            As long as men have hearts,
    Hid often like the acorn in the earth,
    Their inborn love of noble woman’s worth,
            Beyond all beauty’s arts,
    Shall stem the sensuous current of desire,
    And urge the world’s best thought to something higher.
            As long as men have hearts that long for homes.




         TWO PRAYERS.


         HIS.

    Dear, when you lift your gentle heart in prayer,
      Ask God to send His angel Death to me
      Long ere He comes to you, if that may be.
    I would dwell with you in that new life there,
      But having, man-like, sinned, I must prepare,
      By sad probation, ere I hope to see
      Those upper realms which are at once thrown free
      To sweet, white souls like yours, unstained and fair
    Time is so brief on earth, I well might spare
      A few short years, if so I could atone
      For my marred past, ere you are called above.
    My soul would glory in its own despair,
      Till purified I met you at God’s throne,
      And entered on Eternities of Love.


         HERS.

    Nay, Love, not so I frame my prayer to God;
      I want you close beside me to the end;
      If it could be, I would have Him send
    A simultaneous death, and let one sod
      Cover our two hushed hearts. If you have trod
      Paths strange to me on earth, oh, let me wend
      My way with yours hereafter: let me blend
      My tears with yours beneath the chastening rod.
    If you must pay the penalty for sin,
      In vales of darkness, ere you pass on higher,
      I will petition God to let me go.
    I would not wait on earth, nor enter in
      To any joys before you. I desire
      No glory greater than to share your woe.




         SLEEP AND DEATH.


    When sleep drops down beside my Love and me,
      Although she wears the countenance of a friend,
      A jealous