Compare Poets

Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.

Poet A

Edith M. Thomas Edith M. Thomas

Poet B

Ella Wheeler Wilcox Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Compare two related contemporaries

A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.

Kindred spirits
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 78% Poems 87% Blended 82%
Swap sides Another related pair
Edith M. Thomas

Edith M. Thomas

12 August 1854 – 13 September 1925 (~71)
2 live poems · English

Edith Matilda Thomas was born on 12 August 1854 in Chatham, Ohio, and died on 13 September 1925 in New York City. During her lifetime she was admired as one of the most accomplished American lyric poets of the late nineteenth century, praised by editors, fellow writers, and readers for verse that joined close observation of nature to emotional reserve, formal intelligence, and a searching spiritual imagination. Yet s…

“Throughout the winter, nature's active and crescent principle seems never held wholly in abeyance.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

5 November 1850 – 30 October 1919 (~69)
22 live poems · English

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was born on 5 November 1850 in Johnstown Center, Wisconsin, a rural community whose fields, seasons, family routines, and wide horizons remained central to her imaginative life. She died on 30 October 1919 at her home in Short Beach, Connecticut, only days before her sixty-ninth birthday. Between those dates she became one of the most widely read poets in the United States. Her name was known in p…

“Next to that evil I believe the worst thing possible for a human soul is to be born to wealth.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Spirituality, Sorrow

In time

Edith M. Thomas
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
1850 1925
They overlapped for 66 years (1854–1919). When Edith M. Thomas was born, Ella Wheeler Wilcox was about 4. Edith M. Thomas was about 65 when Ella Wheeler Wilcox died.

On the map

About 603 km separate Chatham, Ohio, USA from Johnstown Center, Wisconsin, USA. Both have ground in New York City and New York.

Themes they return to

Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.

Shared

From the biographies

women gave

Edith M. Thomas: chatham, ohio, new york city, helen hunt jackson, a new year's masque, the inverted torch, lyrics and sonnets, northeastern ohio, romantic poetry. Ella Wheeler Wilcox: johnstown center, short beach, solitude, poems of passion, robert m. wilcox, positive thinking, the voice of the voiceless, women's suffrage.

Poems that secretly rhyme

The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.

Vos Non Vobis
Edith M. Thomas
78%
Compare
The Call
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Vos Non Vobis
Edith M. Thomas
77%
Compare
Desolation
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Vos Non Vobis
Edith M. Thomas
77% purpose
Compare
Earnestness
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Vos Non Vobis
Edith M. Thomas
77% purpose
Compare
Pain's Purpose
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Frost To-Night
Edith M. Thomas
77%
Compare
Friendship After Love
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Vos Non Vobis
Edith M. Thomas
77%
Compare
Regret
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Edith M. Thomas: Sorrow, Longing, Despair. Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Longing, Spirituality, Sorrow.

Skip to main content