Writer’s Quote: Ella wheeler Wilcox

I found the above quote while scrolling through my twitter feed and had to share it. Why? Because the atrocities going on in this world are so much that we may sometimes forget there is kindness in this world,

Because, young girls are dying and children are dying. Because, the current generation which are the future are grieving; they’re mourning; their innocence dimming as they see murder  happening around them everyday, it may as well be classified as normal. Because the upcoming generation, and not just those growing up in Syria or Iran or Kashmir, but all around the world- in Nigeria, in Turkey, in Bangladesh, in Palestine, in the United Kingdom, in the states, deserve to have a sky devoid of air strikes, a crowd devoid of bomb blast. They deserve to have peace.

I hope to convey my emotions by sharing the following poem by Ella wheeler Wilcox as my writer’s quote/poem Wednesday submission. I may not be in the North-Eastern part of Nigeria where the boko-haram insurgency has crippled their inhabitants, I may not be in Syria and Palestine where their lives are under constant terror and little seems to be done about it, I may not be in the United Kingdom where a coward of person takes the lives of innocent citizens. But in the words of Ella Wheeler, I echo your cries and I echo your sorrows.

The little white hearse by Ella wheeler Wilcox

Somebody’s baby was buried to-day–
The empty white hearse from the grave rumbled back,
And the morning somehow seemed less smiling and gay
As I paused on the walk while it crossed on its way,
And a shadow seemed drawn o’er the sun’s golden track.

Somebody’s baby was laid out to rest,
White as a snowdrop, and fair to behold,
And the soft little hands were crossed over the breast,
And those hands and the lips and the eyelids were pressed
With kisses as hot as the eyelids were cold.

Somebody saw it go out of her sight,
Under the coffin lid–out through the door;
Somebody finds only darkness and blight
All through the glory of summer-sun light;
Somebody’s baby will waken no more.

Somebody’s sorrow is making me weep:
I know not her name, but I echo her cry,
For the dearly bought baby she longed so to keep,
The baby that rode to its long-lasting sleep
In the little white hearse that went rumbling by.

I know not her name, but her sorrow I know;
While I paused on the crossing I lived it once more,
And back to my heart surged that river of woe
That but in the breast of a mother can flow;
For the little white hearse has been, too, at my door.

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/the-little-white-hearse-by-ella-wheeler-wilcox