Poems of Cheer — Reading Notes

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In Category - Science Fiction Utopias

Authors: Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, 1850-1919 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2002 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: American poetry Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 21,136

Reading time 92 min

Text sections 3

For Poems of Cheer — Reading Notes, the stored edition analysis reports 21,136 words, 1 hr 32 min estimated reading time, and 3 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 22.3 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “American poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #3238

Despite its cataloging as Science Fiction & Utopias, this 1914 collection of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's verse contains no speculative or futuristic elements. Instead, it offers lyrical meditations on art, love, mortality, and the hidden sorrows behind social masks, with a recurring tension between cheer and melancholy.

Editorial Edition Score 4.6/5

★★★★★ ★★★★★

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg3238

Read the Text

r the strife, The world’s highway is cumbered to-day— They make up the sum of life; But the virtue that conquers passion, And the sorrow that hides in a smile— It is these that are worth the homage on earth, For we find them but once in a while.

All wondering, and eager-eyed, within her portico I made my plea to Hostess Life, one morning long ago.

“Pray show me this great house of thine, nor close a single door; But let me wander where I will, and climb from floor to floor!

For many rooms, and curious things, and treasures great and small Within your spacious mansion lie, and I would see them all.”

Then Hostess Life turned silently, her searching gaze on me, And with no word, she reached her hand, and offered up the key.

It opened first the door of Hope, and long I lingered there, Until I spied the room of Dreams, just higher by a stair.

And then a door whereon the one word “Happiness” was writ; But when I tried the little key I could not make it fit.

It turned the lock of Pleasure’s room, where first all seemed so bright— But after I had stayed awhile it somehow lost its light.

And wandering down a lonely hall, I came upon a room Marked “Duty,” and I entered it—to lose myself in gloom.

Along the shadowy halls I groped my weary way about, And found that from dull Duty’s room, a door of Toil led out.

It led out to another door, whereon a crimson stain Made sullenly against the dark these words: “The Room of Pain.”

But oh the light, the light, the light, that spilled down from above And upward wound, the stairs of Faith, right to the Tower of Love!

And when I came forth from that place, I tried the little key— And lo! the door of Happiness swung open, wide and free.

In the rapture of life and of living, I lift up my heart and rejoice, And I thank the great Giver for giving The soul of my gladness a voice. In the glow of the glorious weather, In the sweet-scented, sensuous air, My burdens seem light as a feather— They are nothing to bear.

In the strength and the glory of power, In the pride and the pleasure of wealth (For who dares dispute me my dower Of talents and youth-time and health?), I can laugh at the world and its sages— I am greater than seers who are sad, For he is most wise in all ages Who knows how to be glad.

I lift up my eyes to Apollo, The god of the beautiful days, And my spirit soars off like a swallow, And is lost in the light of its rays. Are you troubled and sad? I beseech you Come out of the shadows of strife— Come out in the sun while I teach you The secret of life.

Come out of the world—come above it— Up over its crosses and graves, Though the green earth is fair and I love it, We must love it as masters, not slaves. Come up where the dust never rises— But only the perfume of flowers— And your life shall be glad with surprises Of beautiful hours. Come up where the rare golden wine is Apollo distills in my sight, And your life shall be happy as mine is, And as full of delight.

I do not undertake to say That literal answers come from Heaven, But I know this—that when I pray A comfort, a support is given That helps me rise o’er earthly things As larks soar up on airy wings.

In vain the wise philosopher Points out to me my fabric’s flaws, In vain the scientists aver That “all things are controlled by laws.” My life has taught me day by day That it availeth much to pray.

I do not stop to reason out The why and how. I do not care, Since I know this, that when I doubt, Life seems a blackness of despair, The world a tomb; and when I trust, Sweet blossoms spring up in the dust.

Since I know in the darkest hour, If I lift up my soul in prayer, Some sympathetic, loving Power Sends hope and comfort to me there. Since balm is sent to ease my pain, What need to argue or explain?

Prayer has a sweet, refining grace, It educates the soul and heart. It lends a lustre to the face, And by its elevating art It gives the mind an inner sight That brings it near the Infinite.

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This volume, published in London in 1914, collects poems originally issued under the title Poems of Life, with a few new verses added. Despite its cataloging as Science Fiction & Utopias, the book contains no speculative or futuristic elements. Instead, Wilcox writes in a late-Victorian lyric mode, addressing art, love, mortality, and the gap between public cheer and private grief. The opening poem, “Worth While,” sets a tone of earnest striving, while later pieces like “In the Crowd” and “Life and I” reveal a darker undercurrent. Readers expecting utopian visions will find instead a poet who treats life as a bittersweet partnership with death.

Art as a Borderland

The first poem, “Worth While,” imagines crossing a “mystic border-land” into the “wonder-world of Art.” Wilcox describes this realm as free of “discord” and “idle sorrow,” where “tears turn into rainbows.” The speaker feels awed and unworthy, calling herself “only the singer of a little song.” This self-deprecating posture recurs throughout the collection. In “The Unattained,” a poet pursues a vision that declares itself “the phantom of desire” and “the spirit of all great endeavour.” The vision warns that it can never be claimed: “All shall pursue, but none shall claim me.” These poems frame artistic ambition as a noble but unfulfillable quest, a theme that aligns with the volume’s title only ironically.

The Mask of Cheerfulness

Several poems directly challenge the notion of cheer. In “In the Crowd,” Wilcox observes a social gathering and imagines what would happen if everyone spoke from the heart: “What a hush would come over the laughter! / What a silence would fall on the mirth!” She calls the crowd “maskers” and “sad-hearted,” suggesting that public gaiety conceals private despair. The poem “Life and I” personifies life as a lover with whom the speaker quarrels and reconciles, but ends with a threat: “I shall one day throw him over, / And plight troth with Death.” Even the title Poems of Cheer begins to feel like a protective facade. The excerpts offer no poems that sustain unalloyed optimism; instead, they repeatedly undercut cheer with mortality.

Rhyme, Meter, and Repetition

Wilcox writes in regular rhyme and meter, often using quatrains with alternating rhymes. In “The Unattained,” she employs a dream-vision structure with a dialogue between poet and ideal. The poem “In the Crowd” uses a series of rhetorical questions and exclamations to build dramatic tension. A notable structural feature is the repeated use of anaphora: “How they bow, how they bend, how they flutter” and “We live, we love, we woo, we wed, / We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.” This last couplet, from “The Year,” compresses the life cycle into a single line. The catalog subject “American poetry” is accurate, but the excerpts show a poet more concerned with universal emotional states than with any specifically American setting or theme.

Readers approaching Poems of Cheer through its catalog entry should set aside expectations of science fiction or utopia. The value of this collection lies in its candid treatment of the gap between social performance and inner life. Wilcox’s regular forms and direct language make the poems accessible, but their content often resists the very cheerfulness the title promises. A useful approach is to read the poems in sequence, noting how the speaker’s relationship with death and disappointment evolves across the volume.

That rainy day, Poems of Cheer kept slipping from my fingers, its bright verses hiding a stubborn ache. I kept thinking about masks, the ones we wear. Later, half-dreaming, I reached for The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems — A Closer Reading and found the same quiet sorrow, wrapped in a different language, waiting under the eaves of home.