Poem “Summer Dreams” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels

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American Literature – American Poetry – Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels
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Summer Dreams

When the Summer sun is shining,
   And the green things push and grow,
Oft my heart runs over measure,
With its flowing fount of pleasure,
   As I feel the sea winds blow;
   Ah, then life is good, I know.

And I think of sweet birds building,
   And of children fair and free;
And of glowing sun-kissed meadows,
And of tender twilight shadows,
   And of boats upon the sea.
   Oh, then life seems good to me!

Then unbidden and unwanted,
   Come the darker, sadder sights;
City shop and stifling alley,
Where misfortune’s children rally;
   And the hot crime-breeding nights,
   And the dearth of God’s delights.

And I think of narrow prisons
   Where unhappy songbirds dwell,
And of cruel pens and cages
Where some captured wild thing rages
   Like a madman in his cell,
   In the Zoo, the wild beasts’ hell.

And I long to lift the burden
   Of man’s selfishness and sin;
And to open wide earth’s treasures
Of God’s storehouse, full of pleasures,
   For my dumb and human kin,
   And to ask the whole world in.

< < < The New Commandment
The Breaking of Chains > > >

American Literature – American Poetry – Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels

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Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels

Summer Dreams

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