Solitude BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

Solitude
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.


Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,—
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.






What is a significant ands play with an eye-catcher in this poem is it play with words. (Even the title portrays a show of the own words “solitude” being solitude. ) It was interesting how ones actions reflect a consequence with the same verb. For example, “you weep and the consequence: you weep alone”, ”feast, and your halls are crowded; fast, and the world goes by” Other lines also show the reflected positive consequence coming from a “positive” action and vice versa. Solitude according to the speaker is gained through one’s supposedly negative actions as seen by others such as sighing,weeping, being sad,etc. I like how this positive/negative comparison is reflected through the indentations of the lines--- the “positive” lines come are placed more outward whereas the “negative” lines are more indented inwards as if the negative ones shouldn’t be taken as of importance just like people in solitude shouldn’t be taken as if important. Also, it is interesting how the poet started out with the possibility at the beginning rather than negativity—perhaps to emphasize that positivism is the aspect most demanded in this world –in parallel to the demand to place positivism first in the poem. the first two stanzas also contains two sentences with a semicolon after the first two lines and the third line would only have a comma and the fourth a period. Except for in the second stanza –after the first sentence “be sad, and you lose them all,-“ it has a hyphen to end the line. It is the only place in the poem where a hyphen is maintained. It is quite in the middle and perhaps to show that the most saddest consequence of the actions mentioned---this time you lose all your friends. The last stanza deviates because it has three sentences The very last sentence with two lines maintains a clear tone throughout of pain with the words such as “one by one” “we must “..showing negativity for once side by side rather than that repeating pattern of positivism/negativity. The line breaks are logical and make a complete thought rather than cutting my developing idea. The commas make a good partial stop for me to contemplate for awhile what I have just read. And if the sentence is broken at one time it is just broken before a preposition ;thus, it does not make much matter because the prepositional phrase is an entirely entity of itself.