Wilcox's Negotiation with Artistic Hierarchy

This poem was written in the 1870s, when Wilcox was establishing herself as a commercial poet—enormously popular but dismissed by critics as sentimental and lightweight. She was acutely aware that she occupied a precarious position: celebrated by readers but excluded from the 'genius-crowned aristocrats' she describes. The poem's anxiety is real, not performative.

Notice what Wilcox does with her own ambition. She doesn't claim genius or demand entry to the heights. Instead, she negotiates downward—she'll accept 'a place / Just on the fair land's edge.' This is not false modesty but a shrewd tactical move. By framing marginal acceptance as preferable to worldly success ('greed and gain'), she redefines her actual position (popular but critically dismissed) as a conscious choice. She's making a virtue of necessity.

The repeated opening stanza functions like a refrain, turning the poem into a ritual incantation. This repetition mirrors the daily labor of writing itself—the return to the desk, the reiteration of the same ambition. For Wilcox, poetry isn't inspiration; it's work.

The Material Basis of 'Divine' Art

Wilcox's most interesting move is how she grounds artistic creation in specific tools and labor. The 'ecstatic strains / Of souls surcharged with music most divine' might sound purely Romantic, but she anchors it in 'chisels and pens' and 'busy brushes.' Art isn't a mystical gift—it's production.

This matters because it shifts the poem's argument. The 'chosen few' aren't born with genius; they've earned their position through the 'footsteps of the great'—meaning they've literally walked the same paths, done the same work. The 'mountain-peaks stand very near to God' not because artists are divinely inspired but because they've climbed through disciplined, material effort. Even the spiritual language ('talked with Him, and with the angels walked') is earned through labor, not granted by birth.

For a working poet like Wilcox, this was a crucial argument. It meant that even if she couldn't claim the highest peaks, her own 'little song' participated in the same system of work that made the great artists great. The 'border-land' she occupies isn't failure—it's a real position within an actual economy of artistic production.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Maurine and Other Poems

Spiritual geography

Wilcox treats Art as a literal place with topography—'border-land,' 'heights,' 'peaks.' This transforms artistic achievement from abstract accomplishment into a physical realm you can enter or be excluded from.

I step across the mystic border-land,

And look upon the wonder-world of Art.

Spiritual geography

How beautiful, ow beautiful its hills!

And all its valleys, how surpassing fair!

The winding paths that lead up to the heights

Are polished by the footsteps of the great.

The mountain-peaks stand very near to God.

The chosen few whose feet have trod thereon

Have talked with Him, and with the angels walked.

Here are no sounds of discord—no profane

Or senseless gossip of unworthy things—

Labor made visible

Notice the shift from grand abstractions to specific tools: 'chisels,' 'pens,' 'brushes.' She grounds the 'divine' in actual material work, not inspiration alone.

Only the songs of chisels and of pens,

Of busy brushes, and ecstatic strains

Labor made visible

Notice the shift from grand abstractions to specific tools: 'chisels,' 'pens,' 'brushes.' She grounds the 'divine' in actual material work, not inspiration alone.

Of souls surcharged with music most divine.

Here is no idle sorrow, no poor grief

For any day or object left behind—

For time is counted precious, and herein

Self-erasure as virtue

The phrase 'complete abandonment of Self' appears in a poem about the speaker's own ambition. Wilcox presents artistic dedication as requiring ego-death—a paradox she doesn't resolve.

Is such complete abandonment of Self

That tears turn into rainbows, and enhance

Self-erasure as virtue

The phrase 'complete abandonment of Self' appears in a poem about the speaker's own ambition. Wilcox presents artistic dedication as requiring ego-death—a paradox she doesn't resolve.

The beauty of the land where all is fair.

Awed and afraid, I cross the border-land.

Oh, who am I, that I dare enter here

Class anxiety

'Genius-crowned aristocrats of Earth'—Art has created its own elite. The speaker's self-doubt ('who am I') reveals the real stakes: access to this world depends on inherited position or exceptional talent.

Where the great artists of the world have trod—

The genius-crowned aristocrats of Earth?

Class anxiety

Only the singer of a little song,

Yet loving Art with such a mighty love

Ambition reframed

She doesn't claim greatness for herself—only 'a place / Just on the fair land's edge, to make my grave.' This is strategic humility, not false modesty. She's negotiating for any foothold at all.

I hold it greater to have won a place

Just on the fair land's edge, to make my grave,

Ambition reframed

She doesn't claim greatness for herself—only 'a place / Just on the fair land's edge, to make my grave.' This is strategic humility, not false modesty. She's negotiating for any foothold at all.

Binary choice

The final couplet presents a false choice: Art-world poverty versus worldly 'greed and gain.' Wilcox erases the middle ground where most working artists actually live—between subsistence and royal thrones.

Than in the outer world of greed and gain

To sit upon a royal throne and reign.

Binary choice

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation