Unconquered
Deem not, O Pain, that thou shalt vanquish me,
Who know each treacherous pang, each last device
Whereby thou barr'st the way to Paradise!
Inured to suffer constantly
Thy joyless fellowship, I gain
The lessons only taught by Pain,
And know, though broken, that my will
Subdues thee still!
Man was not born the slave of things like thee
And thy companion, Death: the livelong day
He valiant strives, and holds ye still at bay;
And when he can no longer see
For thick'ning shadows, faint and spent
He bears his standards to his tent
And yields ye seeming victory;
But—he is free!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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In Darkness
I will be still;
The terror drawing nigh
Shall startle from my lips no coward cry;
Nay, though the night my deadliest dread fulfill,
I will be still.
For, oh! I know,
Though suffering hours delay,
Yet to Eternity they pass away,
Carrying something onward as they flow,
Outlasting woe!
Yes, something won;
The harvest of our tears,—
Something unfading, plucked from fading years;
Something to blossom on beyond the sun,
From Sorrow won.
The agony
So hopeless now of balm
[...] Read more
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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In the Wood
I woke in suffering, and sadly heard,
Hard by my tent, repeated cries of pain,
That to the wilderness, in wildest strain,
Proclaimed the trouble of a mother bird
Robbed of her young; and I, too deeply stirr'd,
Thought as above me fell the ceaseless rain,
Wherefore should one who slumbers wake again,
Since anguish is the universal word?
Then suddenly aloft the wood there rose
The holy anthem of the hermit thrush,
From depths of happiness toward Heaven swelling;
And o'er the forest came an awed repose,
And griefs that chid the stormy night grew hush,
List'ning that wondrous ecstasy upwelling!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Picquart
Foe love of justice and for love of truth—
Aye, 't was for these, for these he put aside
Place and preferment, fortune and the pride
Of fair renown; the friends he prized, in sooth,
All the rewards of an illustrious youth,
And set his strength against a swollen tide,
And gave his spirit to be crucified—
For love of justice and for love of truth.
Keeper of the abiding scroll of fame,
Lo! we intrust to thee a hero's name!
Life, like a restless river, hurrying by,
Bears us so swiftly on, we may forget
The name to which we owe so deep a debt;
But guard it thou, nor suffer it to die!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
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Homeward
When I come to my Father's house he will hear me:
I shall not need
With words implore
Compassion at my Father's door;
With yearning mute my heart will plead,
And my Father's heart will hear me.
One thought all the day hath still caressed me:
Though cloud o'ercast
Is the way I go,
Though steep is the hill I must climb, yet, oh,
When evening falls and the light is past,
At my Father's house I will rest me!
For thither,—whatsoe'er betide me,
Howe'er I stray,
Beset by fears,
Wearied by effort, or blinded by tears,—
Ah, surely I shall find my way,
Though none there be to guide me!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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To Helen Keller
Life has its limitations manifold:
All life; not only that which throbs in thee,
And strains its fetters, eager to be free.
The faultless eye may not thy vision hold—
Maiden, whose brow with thought is aureoled—
And they who hear may lack the ministry,
The august influence of Silence, she
Who brooded o'er the void in ages old.
Prisoner of the dark, inaudible—
Light, which the night itself could not eclipse,
Thou shinest forth Man's being to reveal.
We learn with awe from thine apocalypse,
That nothing can the human spirit quell,
And know him lord of all things, who can feel!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
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Reveille
What frolic zephyr through the young leaves plays,
Scattering fragrance delicate and sweet?
What impulse new moves Robin to repeat
To pale Anemone his roundelays?
What winning wonder fills the world with praise
In this mysterious time? Lo, all things greet
A loved one, new redeemed from death's defeat—
A youth whose languid head fair nymphs upraise!
For him the crocus dons his bravery,—
And violets, for him, their censers swing;
For him the shy arbutus, blushfully,
Peeps through the mosses that about her cling;
Adonis wakes! Awake, earth's minstrelsy!
In swelling diapason hymn the Spring!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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Water Lilies
I gathered them—the lilies pure and pale,
The golden-hearted lilies, virgin fair,
And in a vase of crystal, placed them where
Their perfumes might unceasingly exhale.
High in my lonely tent above the swale,
Above the shimmering mere and blossoms there,
I solaced with their sweetness my despair,
And fed with dews their beauteous petals frail.
But when the aspens felt the evening breeze,
And shadows 'gan across the lake to creep,
When hermit-thrushes to the Oreades
Sang vesper orisons, from cloisters deep,—
My lilies, lulled by native sympathies,
Upfolded their white leaves and fell asleep.
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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Memoria
If only in my dreams I may behold thee,
Still hath the day a goal;
If only in my dreams I may enfold thee,
Still hath the night a soul.
Leaden the hours may press upon my spirit
Nor one dear pledge redeem;
I will not chide, so they at last inherit
And crown me with the rapture of that dream.
Ten thousand blossoms earth's gay gardens cherish;
One pale, pale rose is mine.
Of frost or blight the rest may quickly perish;
Not so that rose divine:
Deathless it blooms in quiet realms Elysian,
And when toil wins me rest,
Forgetful of all else, in blissful vision
I breathe my rose, and clasp it to my breast!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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At The Sarah-Bernhardt Theatre
Nothing that man's creative mind hath wrought
Is wholly foreign to the mind of man:
He looks before and after; in his span
Of life infinities of life are caught,—
Brooding, mysterious, and travail-fraught,—
And near and distant answer, as they can,
Enkindled at the flame Promethean
Of world-embracing, heaven-illumined Thought!
Last night a woman played in Paris here
The rôle of Hamlet, each distinctive grace,
By genius all-subduing and sublime,
Made native in an alien land and time,—
As though she, listening with accustomed ear,
Had learned of English Shakespeare, face to face!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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