Poem “The Goal” 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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The Goal

All your wonderful inventions,
   All your houses vast and tall,
All your great gun-fronted vessels,
   Every fort and every wall,
With the passing of the ages,
   They shall pass and they shall fall.

As you sit among the idols
   That your avarice gave birth,
As you count the hoarded treasures
   That you think of priceless worth,
Time is digging tombs to hide them
   In the bosom of the earth.

There shall come a great convulsion
   Or a rushing tidal wave,
Or a sound of mighty thunders
   From a subterranean cave,
And a boasting world’s possessions
   Shall be buried in one grave.

From the Centuries of Silence
   We are bringing back again
Buried vase and bust and column
   And the gods they worshipped then,
In the strange unmentioned cities
   Built by prehistoric men.

Did they steal, and lie, and slaughter?
   Did they steep their souls in shame?
Did they sell eternal virtues
   Just to win a passing fame?
Did they give the gold of honour
   For the tinsel of a name?

We are hurrying all together
   Toward the silence and the night;
There is nothing worth the seeking
   But the sun-kissed moral height—
There is nothing worth the doing
   But the doing of the right.

< < < Who is a Christian?
The Spur > > >

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

The Goal

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