Uselessness - Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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Ella Wheeler Wilcox was a renowned American poetess and journalist. She was born in Johnstown, Wisconsin on November 5, 1850. The most popular work of Wilcox was “Poems of Passion”. Her autobiography, “The Worlds and I” was published a year before she died in 1918.
Her style is romantic, optimistic, and sentimental. Although she wrote her poems with optimism and joyfulness in plain rhyming verses, she is considered a popular poet compared to her counterparts. She was compared to Walt Whitman in her lifetime because of the passionate feelings she poured into her works. However, unlike Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, she maintained her traditional poetic style. Additionally, she was popular for her verse shaded with eroticism. One of her most popular poems is “Solitude”, published on 25th Feb 1883, which contains the line “Laugh, and the world laughs with you”.
Let mine not be the saddest fate of all,
To live beyond my greater self; to see
My faculties decaying, as the tree
Stands stark and helpless while its green leaves fall
Let me hear rather the imperious call,
Which all men dread, in my glad morning time,
And follow death ere I have reached my prime,
Or drunk the strengthening cordial of life's gall.
The lightning's stroke or the fierce tempest blast
Which fells the green tree to the earth to-day
Is kinder than the calm that lets it last,
Unhappy witness of its own decay.
May no man ever look on me and say,
'She lives, but all her usefulness is past.”
In Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poem "Uselessness," the speaker expresses a deep fear of outliving their prime and witnessing their decline. The poem opens with a plea to avoid the sorrow of seeing one's faculties decay, likening this to a tree that stands stark and helpless as its leaves fall away. The speaker would instead heed the call of death in their "glad morning time," preferring to die before reaching their peak or enduring the hardships that life can bring. The poem contrasts the swift end of a lightning strike or tempest to the prolonged suffering of gradual decay. The speaker views the former as kinder than living on as a mere shadow of their former self. Ultimately, the speaker dreads the possibility of being seen as alive yet devoid of purpose, fearing the judgment that their usefulness has ended. This poignant meditation on aging and the desire to avoid the tragedy of a lingering, purposeless existence resonates with themes of mortality and the value of a life well-lived, making it a powerful reflection on human vulnerability and dignity.
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