Florence Earle Coates

“ Where shall we find a grave for you?
They thought of a spirit as brave as light,
And they bore him up to a lonely height,
And they laid him there, where he loved to be,
On a mountain gazing o'er the sea! ”

“ A leader of the strength that fits a free-born nation! [2]
America, my home!—how dear to-day!
⁠In beauty and augmented splendor,
⁠With smile of mother-love so tender
⁠It doth each sacrifice for thee repay,
⁠Thou standest regnant and secure,
⁠Thy hands extended to the helpless poor,
Thy war-like brows unbent, thine armor laid away.
⁠To love devoutly is to pray. ”

“ Tormenting me when I would pray?
The years are long; yet time hath sped,
And Earth forgets what once she knew,
For hidden far beneath her view,
The grasses wave above my dread.
⁠The guests attend me. Wake, my will!
Put off this garb of sullen gloom!
The dead may neither wound nor blight;
And vengeance slumbers in the tomb.
Be thou but firm, and all's secure:
Match well thy purpose to the hour,
Nor babble what is voiceless still,—
Not Eblis shall abase thy power!
·⁠·⁠·⁠·⁠·⁠·⁠·⁠· ⁠Heard you a knocking then, my lords? ”

“ A transient city, marvelously fair,—
⁠Humane, harmonious, yet nobly free,—
⁠She built for pure delight and memory.
At her command, by lake and garden rare,
Pylon and tower majestic rose in air,
⁠And sculptured forms of grace and symmetry.
⁠Then came a thought of God, and, reverently,—
"Let there be Light!" she said; and Light was there. ”

“ 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 ”

“ How slim, how fair, each 'neath its downy snood,
⁠They stand, new-waked from sleep!
⁠And the enchantment cold
⁠⁠That seemed as death? Could it no longer hold
Against the glow that warmed the breast of Earth?
Hearken! what myriad little lives once more
Come knocking, knocking at the Mother's door,
⁠Importunate for birth! ”

“ He was so small, so very small,⁠
⁠That since she ceased to care,
'T was easy just to pass him by,
⁠Forgetting he was there;
But though too slight a thing he seemed
⁠Of interest to be,—
One heart had loved him with a love
⁠As boundless as the sea. ”

“ 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 ”

“ A vain lamenting,—the exordium
Of fruitless plaint and chiding wearisome,—
⁠While they to whom my chiefest joys are lent,
⁠To worship me in silence are content!"
Love, even so: whom thou dost bless are dumb. ”

“ 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! ”

“ In your calm my senses steep;
⁠Close mine eyes, from tears grown dim;
Give me sleep—I ask but sleep—
⁠In the grave, with him.
⁠Can it be that flowers will spring
Where all lifeless Love shall lie? ”

“ The monument of a departed day,
The shadow of a glory passed away,
⁠Stands Kenilworth; stripped of her pomp, and bare
⁠Of all that made her so supremely fair
When Power with Love contended for her sway. ”

“ Of toil in which man's eager life is bound,
I faint not 'neath the load I bear;
For grievous though the burden sometimes be,
⁠⁠I dream of thee!
⁠And when, at night,
I lie enwound
In silence that is sweeter than all sound,
The darkness, kindlier than light,
Shuts out the busy world awhile, and free,
⁠⁠I dream of thee! ”

“ 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! ”

“ Old Radnor Church bestows her benison,
⁠Calling to us who from the past yet borrow,
⁠To love the right, and living for the morrow,
Fulfill the hopes of heroes that are gone.
So, through whate'er of change the future brings,
⁠Shall she our memories and faiths defend,—
⁠A temple of the highest to the end,
Immortal through the love of deathless things! ”

“ Then, against the world, I hold you:
Mine—forever mine!
Men have waked from dreams of joy:
Teach me to believe this rapture!
Lift your eyes! O my beloved,
Let me read your heart!
Is it true? . . . Ah, me! those eyes! ”

“ Things above them they divined—
⁠Thoughts of God, forever true,
And the deathless Compact signed—
⁠Building better than they knew:
Building liberty not planned,
⁠Law that ampler life controls,
All the greatness of our land
⁠Lying shadowed in their souls. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I halt not for the maimed,
⁠I wait not for the blind;
My foot is never lamed,
⁠Whoe’er may lag behind:
I hasten on, like the wind of God,
⁠To the conquest He ordains:
Parting the human from the clod,
⁠Undoing chains. ”

“ Love for the poor, unfriended, and forlorn,
Which, after love's perfected way,
Judged not itself of greater worth than they.
She lived to bless: love made her strong
To widen good, to limit hate and wrong,
To ease the path of woe ”

“ Enkindled here, O dying year!
⁠Where smoulders low thy pyre.
What hope and what ambition,
⁠What dreams beyond recall!
And look we for fruition,
⁠To find them ashes all?
Is life the wraith of love—of faith? ”

“ Tranquil to lie against thy breast—
⁠Deep source of noiseless springs,
Where hearts are healed, and wounds are dressed,
⁠And naught or sobs or sings:
Against thy breast to lie at rest—
⁠A life that folds its wings. ”

“ 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! ”

“ An atom floating in the sun
⁠Is lasting as an orb.
We fear lest ill should fly itself,
⁠And wrong at last prevail:
Lest good should lack its just reward
⁠And light untimely fail:
We falter, and distrust the fate
⁠We may not understand ”

“ Is set apart, and never again
⁠Shall human eyes the shamrock see
Without a thought of the heroes slain
⁠⁠Whose splendid loyalty,
Stronger than ancient hate or wrong,
Sublimed them 'midst the battle's hell,—
⁠⁠A tidal wave
⁠⁠From the souls of the brave,
That made them deathless as they fell! ”

“ And when most I should be gay
⁠For my triumph,—lo! my sight
Darkens in another's night,
And accusing voices say:
"Guile may lightly vanquish odds;
⁠But though mortals pay the price
⁠And accept the sacrifice,
Treason's hateful to the gods,
⁠⁠⁠Delilah!" ”

“ Belovèd thou hast triumphed everywhere!
⁠Thou hast outgrown, men say, that selfless Right
⁠Which bade thee for the weak expend thy might;
And as a giant strong, dost claim thy share
Of earth's rich conquest, and will naught forbear. ”

“ And Mary's forehead, to our sight,
Wears ever something of its light;
And still the heart—poor pensioner!
In its affliction turns to her—
Best loved of all, best understood,
The type of selfless motherhood! ”

“ 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!" ”

“ Doubting not, and unafraid.
⁠For with Love alone is joy
Free from shadow of alloy;
And before his sacred shrine,
⁠Sorrow, in her deepest sadness,
⁠Guards a hope more blest than gladness,
And through worship grows divine! ”

“ Thou, thou hast seen the child I seek!⁠
The vale is thine and the cloudy peak,
⁠Divine Apollo
⁠Whose eyes doth follow
Each secret course! Ah, speak!
I have sued to the other gods in vain:
Thou wilt not disregard my pain ”

“ A glory is about your track
Of deeds that vanquished tyranny
And set a tortured people free:
Deeds, sprung of manhood's finest grace,
That envious Time will not efface;
Deeds that proclaim a Nation's worth,
And crown the Land that gave them birth. ”

“ Nor sit like phantoms dull and mute,
For something which ye did not hear.
⁠Ye thought me weary? So: and then?
Am I not mortal like the rest?
May I not falter in my mirth,
Nor palsy every guest? . . .
⁠That knocking!—Ah! you note it now. ”

“ Comes the lost one back again!
Lovely things that seem to die
Hither now will quickly hie,
And to-morrow, in the gloom
Of this sad and sunless tomb,
Butterflies will lightly hover,
As o'er meadows fair ”

“ Life laid upon his forehead a caress,⁠
⁠And, smiling, gave him for his birthright dower,
⁠Humor and judgment, passion, purpose, power,
⁠And gifts of vision, pure and limitless:
Then—for she ever tempers man's success,
⁠Nursing the canker in Earth's fairest flower—
⁠She added pain ”

“ 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! ”

“ Not far from Paris, in fair Fontainebleau,
⁠A lovely, memory-haunted hamlet lies,
⁠Whose tender spell makes captive, and defies
Forgetfulness. The peasants come and go,—
Their backs too used to stoop,—and patient sow
⁠The harvest which their narrow need supplies ”

“ Which shall be blest, as naught else can,
⁠In perfect love ere long?"
The old man smiled: the listening breeze
⁠Grew whist on the sun-lit slope;
The old man sighed: "Ah, none of these!
⁠Youth's greatest gift is its hope." ”

“ Where winds tempestuous, blowing by,
⁠Leave giant boulders swept and bare:
⁠Where frequent lightnings fitful flare,
And petrels sound their stormy cry,—
I found a bluebell, sweet and shy,
Lifting its head complacently,
⁠As guarded by the tenderest care—
⁠⁠Far up the crag. ”

“ And blent with these, the whisperings
⁠Of spirit find each shy retreat,
And link the soul with viewless things,
⁠In union close and sweet.
Failure itself may count as gain
⁠In aspiration; paved with fire
May be the path that leads from pain ”

“ 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! ”

“ The courage shown at Arcola
⁠By André Estienne—
The lesson taught at Arcola
⁠Is wholesome now as then.
Needs there a moral to the tale?
⁠Then read in this its sum:
The greatest strength may yield at length,
⁠When sounds a hero's drum! ”

“ She waits for man, and leads him artfully—
⁠In seeming freedom that beguiles his will—
⁠Unto the great wheels grinding in her mill;
And with a voice of suasive melody,
Entreats him: "Lo! all gifts I proffer thee—
⁠All joys that adolescent hopes fulfill,
⁠All riches that the old may covet still—
So thou wilt bow thee down and worship me!" ”

“ She laid her head upon the straw,
⁠She who gave France her liberty,
And angel shapes, whom no man saw—
⁠Ah me! how could men see?—
Watched till the day, then bore away
⁠Something the flames set free. ”

“ Not to be confused with War (Coates, "The serpent-horror writhing in her hair") .
WAR
In the beginning was I born,
⁠With man from out the dust;
And presently, from earth uptorn,
⁠Came Cruelty and Lust. ”

“ When old, nearly mad, and quite utterly desolate, he found his way back to his wife in 1799, and she, after the neglect of nearly forty years, received him with forgiveness and kindness, affectionately nursing him till his death; an act, as has been said, which, even from an artistic point of view, is worth all his pictures. ”

“ By whose example we are upward led; ”