SELF-CONFIDENT YOUTH, a poem

THE earth is mine and its myriad flowers,
     And the stars are mine: I shall count them all;
As I hasten on with expanding powers,
     No cloud-capped peak shall my strength appal.

I will measure my might 'gainst the might of Ocean,
     In ships of my building, its wastes will dare;
I will learn of the swallow its swift-winged motion,
     And ride as it rides, through the fields of Air! . . .

I marvel my fathers have been contented
     To live and to labor in ways time-worn:
That to Fate's denials they e'er consented,
     Solaced by trifles my soul would scorn!

For the tired old world I will write a story
     That none of her children has told before:
A tale of adventure and love, whose glory
     Shall glow in her annals forevermore.

To the depths, to the heights I am called to inherit,
     I will climb, will descend, without fear of fall,
In the perilous joy of a dauntless spirit
     That nothing shall have—if it have not All!

"Self-confident Youth" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (January 1915) and Poems (1916) Volume II.