Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Birth of the Opal

Celestial courtship setup

Wilcox assigns gendered roles: the Sunbeam pursues actively ('wooed with passion'), the Moonbeam flees passively ('fled and hid her head'). This isn't neutral astronomy—it's a Victorian courtship narrative mapped onto celestial bodies.

The Sunbeam loved the Moonbeam,
 And followed her low and high;

Full repetition structure

The poem repeats its entire first half exactly. This isn't accident—it mirrors how day and night repeat cyclically. The repetition enacts the astronomical inevitability the poem describes.

But the Moonbeam fled and hid her head,
 She was so shy—so shy.
The Sunbeam wooed with passion,—
 Oh, he was a lover bold,

Temperature as desire

Notice the repeated heat/cold opposition: 'warm arms,' 'pale and cold,' 'dying Day.' The poem uses thermal language to represent the intensity gap between pursuer and pursued.

And his heart was afire with mad desire,
 For the Moonbeam pale and cold.
She fled like a dream before him,
 Her hair was a shining sheen,—
And oh, that Fate would annihilate
 The space that lay between!
Just as the Day lay panting

Twilight as threshold

The union happens specifically 'Just as the Day lay panting / In the arms of the twilight dim'—not in full daylight or darkness, but in the liminal space between. This is where opposites can meet.

 In the arms of the twilight dim,

Resistance then surrender

The Moonbeam doesn't gradually consent—she's 'caught' and 'startled,' then 'sprang afraid.' The poem frames their union as conquest followed by acceptance, not mutual desire.

The Sunbeam caught the one he sought,
 And drew her close to him.
But out of his warm arms, startled
 And stirred with Love's first shock,
She sprang afraid, like a trembling maid,
 And hid in the niche of a rock.
And the Sunbeam followed and found her,
 And led-her to Love's own feast;

Marriage as consumption

The phrase 'Love's own feast' echoes medieval courtly love language, but also suggests consumption—the Moonbeam is literally consumed into the union, producing the opal.

And they were wed on that rocky bed,
 And the dying Day was their priest.
And lo! the beautiful Opal,
 That rare and wondrous gem,

The opal as synthesis

The poem's payoff: 'Where the moon and sun blend into one.' The opal's actual optical property—it refracts both light and color—makes it the perfect metaphor for a child born of light sources that normally never coexist.

Where the moon and sun blend into one,
 Was the child that was born to them.
The Sunbeam loved the Moonbeam,

Celestial courtship setup

Wilcox assigns gendered roles: the Sunbeam pursues actively ('wooed with passion'), the Moonbeam flees passively ('fled and hid her head'). This isn't neutral astronomy—it's a Victorian courtship narrative mapped onto celestial bodies.

Full repetition structure

The poem repeats its entire first half exactly. This isn't accident—it mirrors how day and night repeat cyclically. The repetition enacts the astronomical inevitability the poem describes.

 And followed her low and high;
But the Moonbeam fled and hid her head,
 She was so shy—so shy.
The Sunbeam wooed with passion,—
 Oh, he was a lover bold,
And his heart was afire with mad desire,

Temperature as desire

Notice the repeated heat/cold opposition: 'warm arms,' 'pale and cold,' 'dying Day.' The poem uses thermal language to represent the intensity gap between pursuer and pursued.

 For the Moonbeam pale and cold.
She fled like a dream before him,
 Her hair was a shining sheen,—
And oh, that Fate would annihilate
 The space that lay between!

Twilight as threshold

The union happens specifically 'Just as the Day lay panting / In the arms of the twilight dim'—not in full daylight or darkness, but in the liminal space between. This is where opposites can meet.

Just as the Day lay panting
 In the arms of the twilight dim,
The Sunbeam caught the one he sought,

Resistance then surrender

The Moonbeam doesn't gradually consent—she's 'caught' and 'startled,' then 'sprang afraid.' The poem frames their union as conquest followed by acceptance, not mutual desire.

 And drew her close to him.
But out of his warm arms, startled
 And stirred with Love's first shock,
She sprang afraid, like a trembling maid,
 And hid in the niche of a rock.
And the Sunbeam followed and found her,

Marriage as consumption

The phrase 'Love's own feast' echoes medieval courtly love language, but also suggests consumption—the Moonbeam is literally consumed into the union, producing the opal.

 And led-her to Love's own feast;
And they were wed on that rocky bed,
 And the dying Day was their priest.
And lo! the beautiful Opal,
 That rare and wondrous gem,
Where the moon and sun blend into one,

The opal as synthesis

The poem's payoff: 'Where the moon and sun blend into one.' The opal's actual optical property—it refracts both light and color—makes it the perfect metaphor for a child born of light sources that normally never coexist.

 Was the child that was born to them.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Wilcox's Gem Mythology

Wilcox was a prolific late-19th-century poet who often used natural phenomena as vehicles for romantic narratives. 'The Birth of the Opal' is characteristic: she takes a geological fact (opals contain silica and water) and constructs an origin myth that's simultaneously whimsical and technically grounded. The opal *does* refract light in ways that make it appear to contain multiple colors at once—Wilcox uses this real optical property as the literal proof of her metaphorical union.

The poem's form reinforces its content: the exact repetition of the opening stanzas mirrors the cyclical nature of day and night. This isn't decorative—it's structural mimicry. Wilcox is writing about cosmic inevitability (sun and moon will always chase each other), so she builds that repetition into the poem's skeleton. The second half doesn't add new information; it enacts recurrence.

The Courtship as Power Imbalance

Read carefully: the Moonbeam never *wants* to be caught. She 'fled,' 'hid her head,' 'sprang afraid.' The Sunbeam 'wooed with passion,' was 'bold,' and ultimately 'caught' her. This is pursuit-and-capture dressed in romantic language. Wilcox doesn't shy away from this—the poem presents it as natural, even beautiful, because it's framed as cosmically inevitable.

The 'dying Day' serving as priest is the crucial detail: the union happens at twilight, in a liminal space where normal rules suspend. Only there can the Moonbeam's resistance be overcome and transformed into something generative. The opal is the consolation prize—beauty born from an act of celestial conquest. For Victorian readers, this would have felt like a romantic triumph. Modern readers might notice what the poem doesn't acknowledge: the Moonbeam's agency is entirely absent from the moment of conception onward.