Ella Wheeler Wilcox's Custer & Other Poems: "A weed is but an unloved flower."

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