p. 583 | HER PURPOSE by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Michigan · Sep 11, 1900

HER PURPOSE.

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Down the long vistas of the years she gazed With eager eyes, expectant and alert. Somewhere her purpose waited — that great work For which she was created. In her heart Burned the deep longing to achieve, achieve — To lead some glorious effort for reform! To feed poor, starving minds with loaves of thought, And hungry hearts with love; to cheer, to aid, To help humanity to nobler heights And purer attitudes. She cared not how, Nor through what paths, God led her to her work; She was prepared for sacrifice and toil And suffering, so be it to the last She might attain her purpose. Night and day This thought was dominant; it had shaped her dreams And colored all her actions, and it grew To be a wall, which shut her duty out, And hid the hearts of dear ones from her view.

A good man starved for love beside her hearth, And little children wandered from the home To find their pleasure elsewhere, and to learn Life's mysteries from other lips than hers. She dreamed of leading hosts to happiness, The while her own was hungering for her care. She dreamed of fame and glory, while dear love Sat in the solitude and pined to death. She waited for her purpose, and knew not It dwelt forever lonely at her side And wept because she would not understand.

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.