Easter
I know the Summer fell asleep
Long weary months ago;
Heaped high above her grave I saw
The heavy winter snow;
Say, sparrow, then, what word you bring;
Is it her requiem you sing?
The meadow lark is mute, the wren
Forgets his late abode,
No throstle answering fluteth near,
Yet never prelude flowed
From ivied bosk or verdant slope
More brimming with delight and hope!
I, listening, seem to see the blooms
That were whilom so dear,
And voices loved and silent long
I, listening, seem to hear;
And longings in my breast confer,
And sweet, prophetic pulses stir.
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Cora
When through thy arching aisles,
O Nature, I perceive
What brooding stillness fills the lonesome choirs
Where, heaven'd late, thy sweet musicians sung;
What rude benumbing touch
Strips from reluctant boughs
The languid leaves, and bares to common view
The sacred nest,—the mute, expressive nest,
Whose state defenseless tells
Of fledgeling treasures flown,—
Then, like the prudent birds, my thoughts take
flight,
Winging o'er wintry fields to find the spring.
II
Somewhere on Earth's cold breast
The dauntless crocus glows,
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Veiled
Is the promise of day merely darkness,
Is sleep full fruition for strife,
Is the grave compensation for sorrow,
Is Nirvana the answer to life?
Is there no unobscured revelation
The evil of Earth to explain,—
No word of compassion to soften
The terrible riddle of pain?
In cold, imperturbable silence
The planets revolve in their course,
And Nature is deaf to entreaty,
Untroubled by doubt or remorse;
The snows, far outspread on her mountains,
Dissolve, nor her mandate gainsay,
And the cloud is consumed at her bidding,
And vanisheth quickly away.
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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The Liberty-Bell
With pomp attendant, and in garlands drest,
I journey from my sacred home once more;
Not this time to the new, triumphant West,
But to a land more dear to me of yore:
A land in memory sweet as the perfume
Of twining jasmine and magnolia bloom.
Though old and broken, for that memory's sake—
The memory of honored things gone by,
I will forget my length of years, and make
This pilgrimage unto her Southern sky,
So Georgia's children, too, my face may know,
And wreathe me proudly with their mistletoe.
Their fathers knew me, and in that great hour
When in the Hall of Freedom, since my home,
They signed the Charter, born of love and power,
That made them one, I, from the lofty dome
Above them, loudly rang the brave command,
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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Alexander III
The world in mourning for a Russian Tsar!
A despot of the nineteenth century
Mourned by the nations that have made men free!
Ye captives of his rule! where'er ye be,
Whether in dungeons or in mines afar—
Wretches who mourn, yet mourn not for the Tsar,—
Forgive the tears that seem a wrong to grief
Barren of comfort and without relief!—
The Tsar was Russia's martyr,—as ye are!
He asked for peace, and she ordained him strife.
A Slav of simple heart, disliking show,
She bade him every lowly hope forego;
And placing on his brow her crown of woe,
Gave him a sovereignty with perils rife,
And 'neath his sceptre hid the assassin's knife.
So, masked as Fear, she broke his nerves of steel
Upon the circle of her racking wheel,
And set a horror at his door of life!
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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To the Tsar
O Thou into whose human hand is given
A godlike might! who, for thy earthly hour,
Above reproof, self-counseled and self-shriven,
Wieldest o'er regions vast despotic power!
Mortal, who by a breath,
A look, a hasty word, as soon forgot,
Commandest energies of life and death!—
Midst terrors dread, that darkly multiply,
Wilt thou thy vision blind, and listen not
Whilst unto Heaven ascends thy people's cry?
In vain, in vain! The injuries they speak
Down unto final depths their souls have stirr'd:
The aged plead through them, the childish-weak,
The mad, the dying,—and they shall be heard!
Thou wilt not hear them; but,
Though Heaven were hedged about with walls of
stone,
And though with brazen gates forever shut,
And sentried 'gainst petitions of despair,
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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Lament of Brünnhilde
Midst rejoicings I have wept,
And in hours when others slept,
I have looked on Horror's face,
In this place.
Now midst wailings I alone
Hush the voice of mortal sorrow,
Gaze on thee, again mine own!—
Fear no parting for the morrow.
For we meet, love, as before,
By a flame-encircled shore.
Thou once more hast stemmed the tide,
To thy bride;
And I wake at thy command
From my agony of dreaming,
And thy ring is on my hand,
And I feel its clasp redeeming!
Heart to heart again responds,
Death asunder rends my bonds,
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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To France
Mother of Freedom! Mother and fond nurse!
Who, from thy mighty loins, with awful throes
And cries of anguish bore her! what new woes
Encompass thee? What long-forgotten curse
Revives to chill thy soul and dull its seeing?
Veiled are thy falcon-glances, as in death:
Thou bleedest, France! and, sobbing, drawest breath,
Sore smitten by the thing thou gavest being!
Is this thine offspring—once so nobly fair
That at her look were riven human chains,
And all men blessed thee for thy travail pains?
Behold! with serpents writhing in her hair
She stands, Medusa-like, the world appalling!
Her bloodless cheeks bespeak the vampire's lust;
Her victims fall before her in the dust;
Yet, unappeased, she still would see them falling.
Is this blest Liberty, this treacherous thing
That hides its venom 'neath a mask of flowers,
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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Old St. David's
"What an image of peace and rest." — Longfellow
In Radnor Valley, from the world apart,
The little Church stands peaceful as of old,
Guarding her memories, yet half untold,
Deep in the silent places of her heart.
Life comes, and passes by her, as it wills;
But musing on loved things evanishèd,
She keeps the generations of the dead,—
Herself unchanged amid her beauteous hills:
Unchanged, though full of change her days have been,
Since builded here, ere Washington was born,
She seemed the home of exiled hearts forlorn—
The open portal to hope's fair demesne.
Close as the ivy that adorns her walls,
So grateful thoughts have twined themselves and clung
About this lowly sanctuary, sprung
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
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To England
We are not twain, but one: though seas divide us—
The children of the English-speaking race—
This nothing now can change: whate'er betide us,
This is our birthright grace.
The tongue that holds our earliest recollection,
Whose accents moved us like a fond caress—
The tongue in which we lisped our first affection,
Must still attach and bless.
America and England knit together—
Offspring of one great Mother, Sister Lands—
Fear neither frowning fate nor boding weather,
When close are joined their hands.
Beneath the ocean-billow sways the cable
That gives them instant knowledge, each of each,
And were it sunk, their hearts would still be able
To find a way of speech.
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poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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