Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Refuted

‘Anticipation is sweeter than realisation.’

It may be, yet I have not found it so.
In those first golden dreams of future fame
I did not find such happiness as came
When toil was crowned with triumph. Now I know
My words have recognition, and will go
Straight to some listening heart, my early aim, 
To win the idle glory of a name, 
Pales like a candle in the noonday’s glow.

So with the deeper joys of which I dreamed: 
Life yields more rapture than did childhood’s fancies, 
And each year brings more pleasure than I waited.
Friendship proves truer than of old it seemed, 
And, all beyond youth’s passion-hued romances, 
Love is more perfect than anticipated.