Born on November 5th 1850 in Johnstown, Wisconsin, Ella Wheeler was the youngest of four children. She began to write as a child and by the time she graduated was already well known as a poet throughout Wisconsin. Regarded more as a popular poet than a literary poet her most famous work 'Solitude' reflects on a train journey she made where giving comfort to a distressed fellow traveller she wrote how the others grief imposed itself for a time on her 'Laugh and the world laughs with you, Weep and you weep alone'.
It was published in 1883 and was immensely popular. The following year, 1884, she married Robert Wilcox. They lived for a time in New York before moving to Connecticut. Their only child, a son, died shortly after birth. Here we publish one of her many poetry books, Custer & Other Poems, that so endeared her to her audience. Ella died of breast cancer on October 30th, 1919.
INDEX OF POEMS The World's Need
High Noon
Transformation
Thought-Magnets
Smiles
The Undiscovered Country
The Universal Route
Earthly Pride
Unanswered Prayers
Thanksgiving
A Maiden to Her Mirror
The Kettle
Contrasts
Thy Ship
The Tryst
Life
A Marine Etching
The Duel
"Love Thyself Last"
Christmas Fancies
The River
Sorry
The Old Wooden Cradle
Ambition's Trail
The Traveled Man
Uncontrolled
The Tulip Bed at Greeley Square
Will
To An Astrologer
The Tendril's Faith
The Times
The Question
Sorrow's Uses
If
Which Are You?
The Creed To Be
Music in the Flat
Inspiration
The Wish
Three Friends
You Never Can Tell
Here and Now
Unconquered
All That Love Asks
Does It Pay
Sestina
The Optimist
The Pessimist
The Hammock's Complaint
Life's Harmonies
Preaching vs. Practice
An Old Man to His Sleeping Young Bride
I Am
Two Nights
Preparation
Custer
