Explore "Heaven and Hell" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
While forced to dwell apart from thy dear face, / Love, robed like sorrow, led me by the hand / And taught my doubting heart to understand / That which has puzzled all the human race. / Full many a sage has questioned where in space / Those counter worlds were? where the mystic strand / That separates them? I have found each land, / And Hell is vast, and Heaven a narrow space.
In the small compass of thy clasping arms, / In reach and sight of thy dear lips and eyes, / There, there for me the joy of Heaven lies. / Outside, lo! chaos, terrors' wild alarms, / And all the desolation fierce and fell / Of void and aching nothingness, makes Hell.