WIST Quotations<p><a href="https://wist.info/wilcox-ella-wheeler/76410/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">A quotation from <b>Ella Wheeler Wilcox</b></a></p><blockquote>Let mine not be the saddest fate of all,<br> To live beyond my greater self; to see<br> My faculties decaying, as the tree<br>Stands stark and helpless while its green leaves fall.<br> Let me hear rather the imperious call,<br> Which all men dread, in my glad morning time,<br>And follow death ere I have reached my prime,<br>Or drunk the strengthening cordial of life’s gall.<br>The lightning’s stroke or the fierce tempest blast<br> Which fells the green tree to the earth to-day<br>Is kinder than the calm that lets it last,<br> Unhappy witness of its own decay.<br> May no man ever look on me and say,<br>“She lives, but all her usefulness is past.”</blockquote><p><b>Ella Wheeler Wilcox</b> (1850-1919) American author, poet, temperance advocate, spiritualist<br>Poem (1882), “Uselessness,” <i>Maurine and Other Poems</i> (1882 ed.)</p> <p>Sourcing, notes: <a href="https://wist.info/wilcox-ella-wheeler/76410/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wist.info/wilcox-ella-wheeler/…</a></p><p><a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=quote" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>quote</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=quotes" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>quotes</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=quotation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>quotation</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=qotd" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>qotd</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=aging" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>aging</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=decline" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>decline</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=gettingold" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>gettingold</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=growingold" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>growingold</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=henoed" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>henoed</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=living" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>living</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=oldage" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>oldage</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=senescence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>senescence</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=usefulness" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>usefulness</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=uselessness" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>uselessness</span></a> <a href="https://my-place.social/search?tag=utility" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>utility</span></a></p>