Poem by 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.

1. At the Boro Boedoer
2. Sonnets of Sorrow. 18. The wise ones tell me that my heart's wild clamour
3. Applause
4. The Beggar Cat
5. Bless the Babies

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