One of her most famous poems, beginning, “Laugh and the World Laughs
with You,” was written about February, 1883, at Madison, Wisconsin.
She had talked with a friend who had been bereaved by death in her
household; later, while dressing for an inaugural ball, given in honor
of the governor of Wisconsin, she was startled to think how soon the
mind turns from stories of sorrow to scenes of gayety. Thus she formed
the idea of this famous poem. It originally appeared in the New York
Sun, and the author received five dollars for it. Subsequently, an
attempt was made to pirate the verses as the composition of another;
but the effort was, happily, a complete failure. The poem embodying the
idea,—
“A question is never settled
Until it is settled right,”
with which W. J. Bryan concludes his book, was written by her after
hearing a gentleman make a remark in those words at the conclusion
of a heated argument, on the single-tax question. The gentleman was
afterward told that Lincoln had made use of this exact expression,
years ago. But neither the gentleman in question, nor Mrs. Wilcox
herself, had ever heard the expression before.
“The Two Glasses,” one of her brightest poems, was written at the age
of eighteen. Although this was a “temperance poem,” she had never, up
to that time, seen a glass of beer or wine. This poem, too, was pirated
by one who pretended to be the author.
“The Birth of the Opal” was suggested by Herman Marcus, the Broadway
jeweler, who advanced the idea of the opal being the child of the
sunlight and moonlight.
“Wherever You Are,” originally appeared in Leslie’s Popular Monthly. A
young man who had served a term in Auburn Prison read this poem, and
it became the means of his reformation. Mrs. Wilcox lent him a helping
hand, and he is to-day a hard-working, honest, worthy man.
She regards the poems, “High Noon,” “To An Astrologer,” and “The
Creed,” as probably her best efforts. It will thus be noted that she
does not prefer the more fervid poems of passion, written in her early
youth.