INFLUENCE, a poem

MY friend leaned o'er the flowery brink
Of evil, bending down to drink;
But though he stooped, resolved to take
     The harmful draught despite my fears,
He yielded for my pleading's sake,
     Feeling my love and tears.

Again he stoops; again I long
To save a fellow-man from wrong.
He was my friend! Fain, in this hour,
     Would I defend him as before:
I strive—but I have lost the power,
     Who love him now no more.

"Influence" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (August 1907), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume I.