In a College Settlement
The sights and sounds of the wretched street
Oppressed me, and I said: "We cheat
Our hearts with hope. Man sunken lies
In vice, and naught that's fair or sweet
Finds further favor in his eyes.
"Vainly we strive, in sanguine mood,
To elevate a savage brood
Which, from the cradle, sordid, dull,
No longer has a wish for good,
Or craving for the beautiful."
I said; but chiding my despair,
My wiser friend just pointed where,
By some indifferent passer thrown
Upon a heap of ashes bare,
The loose leaves of a rose were sown.
And I, 'twixt tenderness and doubt,
Beheld, while pity grew devout,
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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Interchange
The oriole sang in the apple-tree;
The sick girl lay on her bed, and heard
The tremulous note of the glad wild bird;
And, "Ah!" she sighed, "to share with thee
Life's rapture exquisite and strong:
Its hope, its eager energy,
Its fragrance and its song!"
The oriole swayed in the apple-tree,
And he sang: "I will build, with my love, a nest,
Fine as e'er welcomed a birdling guest:
Like a pendent blossom, secure yet free,
It shall hang from the bough above me there,
Bright, bright with the gold that is combed for me
From the sick girl's auburn hair!"
Then he built the nest in the apple-tree;
And, burnished over, a ball of light,
It gleamed and shone in the sick girl's sight,
And she gazed upon it wonderingly:
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
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Brook Song: To the Spring
O beauty! vision of forgotten gladness!
Fulfillment of a dream that ne'er betrays!
O miracle of hope, and balm of sadness!
Creative ecstasy and fount of praise!
...........................................
I lay upon the ground and gave no token,
I hid my face mid sodden leaves and sere,
My languid pulses chill, my spirit broken,—
I knew not, O divine one! you were near;
For snows and frosts of winter, new-departed,
Still held my will in thrall and weighed me down;
And I forgot—forlorn and heavy-hearted—
Your promise, goddess of the violet crown!
But soft as music in remembrance sighing,
You fanned me with your wooing breath, and I,
Who shed no tears when lone I seemed and dying,
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
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Persephone
The wild bird's first exultant strain
Says,—"Winter is over—over!"
And spring returns to the wold again,
With breath as of lilac and clover.
With a certain soft, appealing grace
(Surely some sorrow hath kissed her!)
She gives to our vision her girlish face,
And we know how we've missed her—missed her!
For on a day she went away,
Long ere the leaves were falling,
And came no more for the whitethroat's lay,
Or the pewee's plaintive calling:
In tender tints on her broidered shoon
Blossomed the leaves of the myrtle,
And silky buds of the darling June
Were folded up in her kirtle;
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
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Friends to Virtue
"The gods whom we all belong to are the gods we belong to whether we will or no."
Into the theatre they came—
"Motley 's the only wear!"
Children of poverty, of shame,
Of folly, of despair.
Elbowing rudely, Jill and Jack,
A nearer view to win,
Youths, men, and women, white and black,
Pell-mell, they jostled in.
A wretched place of poor resort,
Far from the world polite,
Few pennies bought the meagre sport
So fruitful of delight,
And gazing there, each brutish face,
The godlike stamp resigned,
A tablet seemed whereon disgrace
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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Art
She stood a vision vestureless and fair,
Glowing the canvas with her orient grace:
A goddess grave she stood, with such a face
As in Elysium the immortals wear.
But some, unworthy, as they pondered there,
Cold to the marvel of her look divine—
Saw but a form undraped, in Beauty's shrine.
Then she, it seemed, rebuked them: "Old and
young
Have worshiped at the temple where I breathe,
And deathless laurels, for my sake, enwreathe
The brows of him from whose pure thought I
sprung:
Lips consecrate as yours his praise have sung,—
Who neither sued for praise nor courted ease,
But reverently wrought, as from his knees.
"No raiment can the base or mean reclaim,
And that which sacred is must sacred be,
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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A Tomb in Tuscany
In Montepulciano fair,—
Long famous for that vintage rare,
Prized by the giver of the vine
Above all wine—
There dwelt a man whose years had taught him
To seek, beyond what wealth had brought him,
Something to give his transient name
A lasting fame.
"For lordly palaces," he said,
"Shall crumble; ay, and bastions dread,
And temples grave and gardens gay
Become as they;
Each vaunted image of my power
Shall perish like a wayside flower,
And like the hawk my hand hath fed
Lie waste and dead.
"Wherefore, ere yet my days be spent,
I will uprear a monument
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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Perdita
She dances,
And I seem to be
In primrose vales of Sicily,
Beside the streams once looked upon
By Thyrsis and by Corydon:
The sunlight laughs as she advances,
Shyly the zephyrs kiss her hair,
And she seems to me as the wood-fawn, free,
And as the wild rose, fair.
Dance, Perdita! and shepherds, blow!
Your reeds restrain no longer!
Till weald and welkin gleeful ring,
Blow, shepherds, blow! and, lasses, sing,
Yet sweeter strains and stronger!
Let far Helorus softer flow
'Twixt rushy banks, that he may hear;
Let Pan, great Pan himself, draw near!
Stately
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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The Return
Who knocks at the door so late, so late—
Who knocks so late at the door?
Is it one who comes as a stranger comes,
Or one who has knocked before?
Is it one who stays with intent to bless,
Or one who stands to implore?
My days have been as the years, she said,
And my heart, my heart is sore;
Love looked in my face for a moment's space
One happy spring of yore—
Looked in my face with a wistful grace:
And left me to grieve evermore!
Through all the days the door stood wide,
For hope had breathed a vow
That love should ne'er be kept outside.
The years were long and hope hath died;
The door at last is barred and fast—
Why comes this knocking now?
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
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A Ballad of a Drum
The Austrians at Arcola
(The fight had lasted long),
The Austrians at Arcola—
Some fifty thousand strong—
Assailed the bridge whereto the French
(A fourth their strength) had come,.[1]
With menace dire, and murderous fire;
Then fled before a drum!
For Estienne at Arcola—
Heroic little lad!—
Seeing the carnage on the bridge,
With soul grown sick and sad,
Had sworn that he, at least, would pass
Beyond the sanguine tide,
And beat his drum, whate'er should come,
Upon the farther side.
So Estienne at Arcola—
No fear had he to die!—
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
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