The Winds of Fate

The Winds of Fate

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

One ship driveseast and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.
Like the winds of the seas are the ways of fate,
As we voyage along through the life:
Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

埃拉·惠勒·威尔科克斯（Ella Wheeler Wilcox，1850-1919）是十九世纪美国著名作家和诗人。对于中国读者来说，她的声名虽不如沃尔特.惠特曼（Walter Whitman）那般卓著，但却当之无愧成为她那个时代最受欢迎的诗人。她的诗平实质朴、清新自然、韵律精美、意境遂远，意想典雅而纤丽，被许多报刊杂志书籍争相刊登，也受到无数诗歌爱好者的喜爱，其中有13首作品被选入 《最受喜爱美国诗歌选集》，而《

孤独

》则被读者评选为最难忘的诗歌之一。