Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 –1919) was an American author and poet. Her works include the collection Poems of Passion and the poem "Solitude", which contains the lines "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone."

A Solar Eclipse

In that great journey of the stars through space

About the mighty, all-directing Sun,

The pallid, faithful Moon, has been the one

Companion of the Earth. Her tender face,

Pale with the swift, keen purpose of that race,

Which at Time’s natal hour was first begun,

Shines ever on her lover as they run

And lights his orbit with her silvery smile.

Sometimes such passionate love doth in her rise,

Down from her beaten path she softly slips,

And with her mantle veils the Sun’s bold eyes,

Then in the gloaming finds her lover’s lips.

While far and near the men our world call wise

See only that the Sun is in eclipse.

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox