Transition
Awake my soul!
Thou shalt not creep and crawl—
An earth-bound creature, pitiful and small,
Whose weak ambition knows no higher goal!
O wistful soul,
When morning sings,
Forgetful of the night,
Bathe all thy restless being in the light;
Till 'neath the mesh that close about thee clings
Thou feel thy wings!
Then find life's door,—
Trusting the instinct true
That points to Heaven and the aerial blue
A wingèd thing, impelled for evermore
To soar and soar!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Difference
Had Henley died, his course half run—
Had Henley died, and Stevenson
Been left on earth, of him to write,
He would have chosen to indite
His name in generous phrase—or none.
No envious humor, cold and dun,
Had marred the vesture he had spun,
All luminous, to clothe his knight—
Had Henley died!
Ah, well! at rest—poor Stevenson!—
Safe in our hearts his place is won.
There love shall still his love requite,
His faults divinely veiled from sight,
Whose tears had fallen in benison,
Had Henley died!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Dreyfus
France has no dungeon in her island tomb
So deep that she may hide injustice there;
The cry of innocence, despite her care,—
Despite her roll of drums, her cannon's boom,—
Is heard wherever human hearts have room
For sympathy: a sob upon the air,
Echoed and reëchoed everywhere,
It swells and swells, a prophecy of doom.
Thou latest victim of an ancient hate!
In agony so awfully alone,
The world forgets thee not, nor can forget:
Such martyrdom she feels to be her own,
And sees involved in thine her larger fate;
She questions, and thy foes shall answer yet.
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Coronation—To King Edward VII
If thou be crowned, or if thou be not crowned
With that imperial round
Thy forbears from the distant ages wore,
Sorrow and suffering for thee have earned
A guerdon fairer than thy hope discerned;
And through renunciation, thou hast found
A cirque of sovereignty not dreamed before.
If thou be crowned? Nay, thou art crowned now;
For, lo! upon thy brow,
So lately shadowed by Death's mournful wing,
A mighty people's sympathy has laid
An aureole whose brightness shall not fade:
Whose light, more worth than chrism, or seal, or vow,
Sceptre or throne, makes thee, indeed, a King!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
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)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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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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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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"Ask What You Will"
Ask what you will, I must obey your hest!
Thus much, my lady-bird, seems manifest
To you and me, who well each other know;
What you, small tyrant, beg, I must bestow.
Come; falter not, but proffer your request!
Is it the flower I wear here on my breast?
My favorite nag? The book I love the best?
Some dainty gown? Some brooch or necklace?
No?
Ask what you will!
See how the sun, down-sinking to his rest,
Gilds with his glory all the roseate west!
I linger on, in life's chill afterglow.
Nay; smile, beloved!—like your mother—so!
Stay but a moment! Now—my own! my blest!
Ask what you will.
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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