In Faith by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Name: In Faith
Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Faith" is a lyric poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in which an abandoned lover addresses the man who left her, expressing unwavering belief in his eventual return. The poem opens in retrospect: the speaker recalls a time of mutual happiness — summer evenings, moonlit wanderings, roses on the porch — during which she gave her heart fully and purely to a man with dark brown eyes. That happiness ended when he grew restless and departed, presumably for another woman in a warmer climate, one with "redder" lips and brighter eyes. Rather than descending into bitterness, the speaker pivots to a declaration of patient, steadfast faith. She concedes that the rival may be more physically alluring, but asserts the absolute superiority of her own devotion: no heart he encounters will be truer than hers. The emotional architecture of the poem then shifts forward in time, as the speaker imagines a future moment of disillusionment for the wanderer. The world's pleasures, she predicts, will prove shallow — its hearts hollow, its affections deceitful — and when that weariness sets in, memory will draw him back. The south wind, the robin's song, and the roses will trigger involuntary nostalgia, and his feet will instinctively turn toward her porch. The speaker describes herself waiting with absolute certainty: tending the same porch, listening for his footstep in the birdsong, keeping a vacant chair. Her love, she declares, is as fixed and navigational as the polar star — a force that will draw him across any distance of land or sea. The poem closes with a confident vision of reunion, the speaker fully expecting to live once more in the light of his dark brown eyes when the seasons cycle back to bloom. The governing theme is faith as an active, sustaining force rather than passive resignation. Wilcox frames romantic constancy not as weakness or submission but as a kind of spiritual certainty — the lover does not hope he will return; she *knows* it. Nature imagery (the robin, the moon, the south wind, the roses) serves a structural function, framing both the original happiness and the anticipated reconciliation within the same seasonal rhythm, implying that love, like nature, moves in cycles of departure and return. The poem belongs to Wilcox's characteristic mode: emotionally direct, formally accessible, and unapologetically sentimental in its insistence that genuine love is ultimately irresistible.

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox · First published 1905 · Genre: Romantic Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry · 548 words

First lines

When the soft sweet wind o' the south went by, / I dwelt in the light of a dark brown eye; / And out where the robin sang his song, / We lived and loved, while the days were long.

In the sweet, sweet eves, when the moon swung high, / We wandered under the starry sky; / Or sat in the porch, and the moon looked through / The latticed wall, where the roses grew.

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In Faith is listed on Textopian as a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, dated 1905 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Date: 1905 CE
Language: English
Genres: Romantic Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry, Elegiac Poetry, Sentimental Poetry
Length: 548 words
Structure: 1 section, 11 paragraphs
Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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Genres

Romantic Poetry — The poem centers on idealized love and emotional devotion, with vivid natural imagery (roses, moon, stars) characteristic of Romantic verse expressing profound personal emotion.
Lyric Poetry — The work is a personal emotional expression structured in verse form that prioritizes feeling and melody over narrative, with the speaker's inner emotions as the primary focus.
Love Poetry — Romantic love is the explicit subject matter throughout, exploring the speaker's passionate feelings, physical attraction, and desire for reunion with the beloved.
Elegiac Poetry — The poem mourns loss and longing, with imagery of dead vines and a mourning dove replacing the robin's song, expressing sorrow over separation and absence.