The Project Gutenberg eBook, Poems of Passion, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Poems of Passion

Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Release Date: September 30, 2005 [eBook #16776]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF PASSION***

E-text prepared by Chuck Greif and Pat Saumell

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 16776-h.htm or 16776-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/7/7/16776/16776-h/16776-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/7/7/16776/16776-h.zip)

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 ch