Poems of Passion

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Poems of Passion, by Ella Wheeler
Wilcox
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Title: Poems of Passion
Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Release Date: September 30, 2005 [eBook #16776]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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OF PASSION***
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POEMS OF PASSION
Illustrated
by
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
W. B. Conkey Company
Publishers--Chicago

1883
[Illustration: Picture of Ella Wheeler Wilcox]

OTHER BOOKS
by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
THREE WOMEN
POEMS OF POWER
MAURINE
POEMS
OF PASSION
POEMS OF PLEASURE
KINGDOM OF LOVE
AND OTHER POEMS
AN ERRING WOMAN'S LOVE

EVERY-DAY THOUGHTS
MEN WOMEN AND EMOTIONS

AN AMBITIOUS MAN
THE BEAUTIFUL LAND OF NOD

AROUND THE YEAR WITH ELLA
WHEELER WILCOX A
Birthday Book

Oh, you who read some song that I have sung,
What know you of the
soul from whence it sprung?
Dost dream the poet ever speaks aloud
His secret thought unto the
listening crowd?
Go take the murmuring sea-shell from the shore:
You have its shape,
its color and no more.
It tells not one of those vast mysteries
That lie beneath the surface of
the seas.
Our songs are shells, cast out by-waves of thought;
Here, take them
at your pleasure; but think not
You've seen beneath the surface of the waves,
Where lie our
shipwrecks and our coral caves.
[Illustration: THE POET'S SONG]

PREFACE
Among the twelve hundred poems which have emanated from my too
prolific pen there are some forty or fifty which treat entirely of that
emotion which has been denominated "the grand passion"--love. A few
of those are of an extremely fiery character.
When I issued my collection known as "Maurine, and Other Poems," I
purposely omitted all save two or three of these. I had been frequently
accused of writing only sentimental verses; and I took pleasure and
pride in presenting to the public a volume which contained more than
one hundred poems upon other than sentimental topics. But no sooner
was the book published than letters of regret came to me from friends
and strangers, and from all quarters of the globe, asking why this or
that love poem had been omitted. These regrets were repeated to me by
so many people that I decided to collect and issue these poems in a
small volume to be called "Poems of Passion." By the word "Passion" I
meant the "grand passion" of love. To those who take exception to the
title of the book I would suggest an early reference to Webster's
definitions of the word.
Since this volume has caused so much agitation throughout the entire
country, and even sent a tremor across the Atlantic into the Old World,
I beg leave to make a few statements concerning some of the poems.
The excitement of mingled horror and amaze seems to center upon four
poems, namely: "Delilah," "Ad Finem," "Conversion," and
"Communism."
"Delilah" was written and first published in 1877. I had been reading
history, and became stirred by the power of such women as Aspasia
and Cleopatra over such grand men as Antony, Socrates, and Pericles.
Under the influence of this feeling I dashed off "Delilah," which I
meant to be an expression of the powerful fascination of such a woman
upon the memory of a man, even as he neared the hour of death. If the
poem is immoral, then the history which inspired it is immoral. I
consider it my finest effort.

"Ad Finem" was written in 1878. I think there are few women of strong
character and affections who cannot, from either experience or
observation, understand the violent intensity of regret and despair
which sometimes takes possession of the human heart after the loss by
death, fate, or the force of circumstances, of some one very dear.
In "Ad Finem" I intended to give voice to this very common experience
of almost every heart. Many noble women have since told me that the
poem was true to life. It is not, as many people have wilfully or
stupidly construed it, a bit of poetical advice to womankind to "barter
the joys of Paradise" for "just one kiss." It is simply an illustration of a
moment of turbulent anguish and vehement despair, such moments of
unreasoning and overwhelming sorrow as the most moral people may
experience during a lifetime.
In "Communism" I endeavored to use a new simile in illustrating that
somewhat hackneyed theme of the supremacy of Love over Reason;
and simply to carry out my idea I represented the violent uprising of the
Communist emotions