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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