1883 - Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, Weep and you weep alone

Yesterday, as the kids and I were patiently killing a little time in between dental appointments we happened onto a small dusty little thrift store. Buried deep in the back shelves of old encyclopedia volumes and national geographic I found, to my absolute delight, a copy of Poems of Passion by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. I am giddy, just giddy I tell you. It's in decent condition for it's age. Just holding it, knowing that it is one hundred and twenty four years old, adds a special tingle to my already giddy happiness. It is by no means one of her rarer books but I love it right down to its teal cloth cover decorated in gilded flowers worn down with age.

I can just imagine what some of the prim and proper society of the day thought of her "forward thinking" female perspective on love and relationships and all of her "New Thought." She was "against" booze and "for" trying to talk to her dead husband but it's hard to hold that against her :) Here is the link to a website if your interested in browsing through some of her poems or literary works. You'll have to excuse me; I feel the need for a good pot of flowering tea and a cozy corner....

http://www.ellawheelerwilcox.org/

Communism

When my blood flows calm as a purling river
When my heart is asleep and my brain has sway,

It is then that I vow we must part forever,
That I will forget you, and put you away
Out of my life, as a dream is banished
Out of the mind when the dreamer awakes;
That I know it will be when the spell has vanished,
Better for both of our sakes.

When the court of the mind is ruled by Reason,
I know it is wiser for us to part;
But Love is a spy who is plotting treason,
In league with that warm, red rebel, the Heart.
They whisper to me that the King is cruel,
that his reign is wicked, his law a sin,
And every word they utter is fuel
to the flame that smolders within.

And on nights like this, when my blood runs riot
With the fever of youth and its made desires,
When my brain in vain bids my heart be quiet,
When my breast seems the center of lava-fires,
Oh, then is the time when most I miss you,
And I swear by the stars and my soul and say
That I will have you, and hold you, and kiss you,
Though the whole world stand in the way.

And like Communists, as mad, as disloyal.
My fierce emotions roam out of the lair;
They hate King Reason for being royal-
They would fire his castle, and burn him there.
O Love! they would clasp you, and crush you and kill you,
In the insurrection of uncontrol.
Across the miles, does this wild war thrill you
That is raging in my soul?

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox