A Feeling That Can Become Sublime
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
There is a courage, a majestic thing
That springs forth from the brow of pain, full-grown,
Minerva-like, and dares all dangers known,
And all the threatening future yet may bring;
Crowned with the helmet of great suffering,
Serene with that grand strength by martyrs shown,
When at the stake they die and make no moan,
And even as the flames leap up are heard to sing.
A courage so sublime and unafraid,
It wears its sorrows like a coat of mail;
And Fate, the archer, passes by dismayed,
Knowing his best barbed arrows needs must fail
To pierce a soul so armoured and arrayed
That Death himself might look on it and quail.
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The above poem was published in our associated websites on 24 January 2020.
It was reproduced from the book “Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox”, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Edinburgh, W. P. Nimmo, Hay, & Mitchell, undated edition, probably 1917, pp. 461-462. Original title: “Courage”. The poem is also part of the July 2018 edition of “The Aquarian Theosophist”, pp. 15-16.
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Click to see other writings by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
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