In Winter Time
How sweet it is 'neath apple-blooms to lie,
And breathe their breath!
To peep through waving branches at the sky,
To feel the zephyrs as they idle by,
And question of the brooklet what it saith!
How sweet it is to roam through the green wold
When labors cease!
To hear the tranquil tale by Nature told—
The tale that was not young, and grows not old—
To find within the heart an answering peace!
And though apart from Nature we maintain
An alien quest,
How sweet that we shall leave the strife and strain
Some blessèd morn, and wander back again,
And close our eyes, and in her bosom rest!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Nansen
To drift with thee, not strive against thy tide,
All-powerful Nature! to pursue thy law,
Attentive—with devout and childlike awe
Heark'ning unto thy voice, and none beside:
To drift with thee! With thee for friend and guide
In fragile bark, careless of cold or thaw,
To brave the ice-pack and the dread sea-maw!—
So are man's conquests won, so glorified.
The truest compass is the seeing soul.
Oh, wond'ring earth! did not thy spirit glow,
Calling to mind the deathless Genoese,
As Nansen, pilot of the frozen Pole,
Like a young Viking rode the icy floe,
Wresting their secret from the Arctic Seas?
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Maid's Defense
'T were little to renounce what now I hold,
Such riches as make poor: a pomp that tires,
A vernal glow that kindles autumn fires,
A youth that, wasteful in its haste, grows old;
'T were little to relinquish pleasure doled
In meagre measure to my swift desires,
To give what nor delights me nor inspires,
In free exchange for Love's all-prizèd gold;
Yet there is something it were pain to yield,
Which I should part with, Love, in welcoming thee:
A shy uncertainty that dearer seems
Than e'en thy gifts, and is my fence and shield:
The dim ideal of my waking dreams,
The Love unknown, that distant, beckons me!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To William Butler Yeats
Tell us of beauty! Touch thy silver lyre
And bid thy Muse unfold her shining wings!
Tell us of joy—of those unaging things
Which wither not, nor are consumed of fire,
Things unto which the souls of all aspire!
Sing us the mystic song thine Erin sings,
Her poignant dreams, her weird imaginings,
With magic of thy "Land of Heart's Desire!"
Let others hate!—from lips not thine be hurled
Reproaches; since all hate at last must prove
Abortive, though it triumph for a while.
The gospels that indeed have won the world
Laid their foundations in the strength of love.
Sing thou, a lover, of thy wave-washed Isle!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Added by Dan Costinaş
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First and Last
Hope smiles a welcome, if no other smiles,
Upon our entrance to this world of pain;
And on each purpose of our youth again,
With an inspiring sympathy, she smiles.
She leads us forth to battle, and beguiles
Our anguish when the long fight proves in vain;
Till, pierced by countless wounds, amongst the
slain
We leave her, while the victor foe reviles.
But even as we touch at ruin's verge,
And hear the voices of despair that urge
The fatal plunge to chaos, Hope alone,—
How healèd and how ransomed none may guess,—
Rising again in pallid loveliness,
Resumes her sway, a thousand times o'erthrown.
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Life
Before we knew thee thou wert with us; ay,
In that far time, forgotten and obscure,
When, doubtful of ourselves, of naught secure,
We feebly uttered first our human cry.
We had not murmured hadst thou passed us by,
And now, with all our vaunted knowledge sure,
We know not from what source of bounty pure
Thou camest, our dull clay to glorify.
Yet—for thou didst awake us when but dust,
Careless of thee—one tender hope redeems
Each loss by the dark river: more and more
We feel that we who long for thee may trust
To wake again, as children do from dreams,
And find thee waiting on the farther shore.
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Probation
Full slow to part with her best gifts is Fate;
The choicest fruitage comes not with the spring,
But still for summer's mellowing touch must wait,—
For storms and tears, which season'd excellence
bring;
And Love doth fix his joyfullest estate
In hearts that have been hushed 'neath Sorrow's
brooding wing.
Youth sues to Fame: coldly she answers, "Toil!"
He sighs for Nature's treasures: with reserve
Responds the goddess, "Woo them from the soil."
Then fervently he cries, "Thee will I serve,—
Thee only, blissful Love!" With proud recoil
The heavenly boy replies, "To serve me well,
deserve!"
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Sappho
As a wan weaver in an attic dim,
Hopeless yet patient, so he may be fed
With scanty store of sorrow-seasoned bread,
Heareth a blithe bird carol over him,
And sees no longer walls and rafters grim,
But rural lanes where little feet are led
Through springing flowers, fields with clover
spread,
Clouds, swan-like, that o'er depths of azure
swim,—
So, when upon our earth-dulled ear new breaks
Some fragment, Sappho, of thy skyey song,
A noble wonder in our souls awakes;
The deathless Beautiful draws strangely nigh,
And we look up, and marvel how so long
We were content to drudge for sordid joys that
die.
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Let Me Believe
Let me believe you, love, or let me die!
If on your faith I may not rest secure,—
Beyond all chance of peradventure sure,—
Trusting your half-avowals sweet and shy,
As trusts the lark the pallid, dawn-lit sky,—
Then would I rather in some grave obscure
Repose forlorn, than, living on, endure
A question each dear transport to belie!
It is a pain to thirst and do without,
A pain to suffer what we deem unjust,
To win a joy—and lay it in the dust;
But there's a fiercer pain,—the pain of doubt:
From other griefs Death sets the spirit free;
Doubt steals the light from immortality!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To Poverty
Pale priestess of a fane discredited,
Whose votaries to-day are few or none;
Goddess austere, whose touch the vulgar shun,
As they would shrink from a Procrustes bed,
Hieing to temples where the feast is spread,
And life laughs loudly, and the smooth wines run;
Wise mother!—least desired 'neath the sun,
At thy chill breasts the noblest have been fed.
Great are thy counsels for the brave and strong;
Yet do we fear thy brooding mystery,
The griefs, the hardships, which about thee throng,
The scanty garners where thy harvests be;
But seeing what unto the rich belong,
We know our debt, O Poverty, to thee!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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