IN PATHETIC REMEMBRANCE, a poem

E. N. W.

Author of "David Harum"

A DYING man, so say you, wrote this book?
     Life is abundant here: from every page—
     Cheerful, courageous, philosophic, sage,
With no repining and no backward look—
It flows, as healthful as the mountain brook,
     That gathering scent of grape and saxifrage,
     Makes joyous pastime of its pilgrimage,
Fresh’ning each pebbly bend, each mossy crook.

The story journeys to forgetfulness?
     Truly: yet he who wrote, with failing breath,
     Ennobled human nature; for since he
     Who died in far Samoa by the sea,
There scarce hath come, through failure and success,
     A braver spirit to the gates of death!

"In Pathetic Remembrance" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Mine and Thine (1904).

"E. N. W." is Edward Noyes Westcott. For a LibriVox recording of this poem read by Sonja N. Bohm, visit "In Pathetic Remembrance" at Archive.org.

Poems of Easter

Easter, 2016

Grave of Florence Earle Coates
Church of the Redeemer
Bryn Mawr, PA

THEY TOLD ME

THEY told me: "Pan is dead—Nature is dead:
There is no God." I read
The words of Socrates, and then I read
Of Jesus; and I said:—
"Divinity 's not dead!"

Good can nor poisoned be
Nor slain upon a tree:
The soul of good, escaping, still is free,
And in its ministry
Lives God eternally.

"They Told Me" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

REJECTED

THE World denies her prophets with rash breath,
     Makes rich her slaves, her flatterers adorns;
To Wisdom's lips she presses drowsy death,
     And on the brow Divine a crown of thorns.
Yet blessèd, though neglected and despised—
     Who for the World himself hath sacrificed,
Who hears unmoved her witless mockery,
     While to his spirit, slighted and misprised,
Whisper the voices of Eternity!

"Rejected" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (April 1887), Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

THE LARK

THERE is a legend somewhere told
Of how the skylark came of old
        To the dying Saviour's cross,
And circling round that form of pain
Poured forth a wild, lamenting strain,
        As if for human loss.

Pierced by those accents of despair,
Upon the tiny mourner there
        Turning his fading eyes,
The Saviour said, "Dost thou so mourn,
And is thy fragile breast so torn,
        That man, thy brother, dies?

"O'er all the world uplifted high,
We are alone here, thou and I;
        And near to heaven and thee
I bless thy pity-guided wings!
I bless thy voice—the last that sings
        Love's requiem for me!

"Sorrow no more shall fill thy song;
These frail and fluttering wings grown strong,
        Thou shalt no longer fly
Earth's captive—nay, but boldly dare
The azure vault, and upward bear
        Thy transports to the sky!"

Soon passed the Saviour; but the lark,
Close hovering near Him in the dark,
        Could not his grief abate;
And nigh the watchers at the tomb,
Still mourned through days of grief and gloom,
        With note disconsolate.

But when to those sad mourners came,
In rose and amethyst and flame,
        The Dawn Miraculous,
Song in which sorrow had no part
Burst from the lark's triumphant heart—
        Sweet and tumultuous!

An instant, as with rapture blind,
He faltered; then, his Lord to find,
        Straight to the ether flew,—
Rising where falls no human tear,
Singing where still his song we hear
        Piercing the upper blue!

"The Lark" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (March 1907), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

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 meadowlark 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.

"Thou lonely one," they seem to say,
     "Lost Summer shall return;
Wreathed in her shadowy tresses shall
     The roses blissful burn;
Wan lilies at her feet shall lie,
     And wind-flowers on her bosom sigh.

"Here, from this rough and lowly bed,
     The little celandine
Shall lift her sunny glances to
     The balmy eglantine;
And flags shall flaunt by yonder lake,
     And fair Narcissus there awake."

I know the Summer fell asleep
     Long weary months ago;
But ah! all is not lost, poor heart,
     That's laid beneath the snow;
There wait, grown cold to care and strife,
     Things costliest, dying into life.

All changes, but Life ceases not
     With the suspended breath;
There is no bourne to Being, and
     No permanence in Death;
Time flows to an eternal sea,
     Space widens to Infinity!

"Easter" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

AT EASTER

HE saw the myriad blooming plants
     That mark the hallowed morn;
He thought upon a lowly mound
     In a far land, forlorn,

Where yearning love would never come
     To place or flower or leaf,
Where lonely love would never bring
     Its heartache for relief.

When, lo! athwart his musings, came
     Again that strange appeal
Which he had listened to before,—
     Without the power to feel;

And putting by a vain regret,—
     His fallen foe to save,—
"Ah, love!" he sighed, "lost love!—I lay
     This blossom on thy grave!"

"At Easter" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Mine and Thine (1904).

ÉASTRE

          I WHO am ever young,
          Am she whom Earth hath sung
From the far ages when from death awaking
She felt the dawn of life within her breaking—
A strange and inexperienced delight—
That warned the desert places of her night,
          And, after bondage long,
             Left her divinely free
             To worship with an ecstasy,
          Voiceless, that yet was song!

          I am that she, Astarte named,
By proud Phœnicia and Assyria claimed,
Adored by Babylon and Naucratis.
          From the moon, my throne of bliss,
          On famed Hieropolis
Where stood my temple sanctified and hoary,
I poured such floods of silver glory
That mortals—blest my ''palest'' beams to see—
Fell prone upon the earth and worshiped me!

I am Aurora—goddess of the dawn!
To heaven in my orient car updrawn,
          While wingèd joys fly after,
I part with roseate hand the curtained dark.
          Mid bird-songs and celestial laughter,
I perfume all the æther with my breath,
And putting by the envious clouds of Death,
          With my insistent yearning
Rekindle the sun's fire and set it burning.

          Persephone am I—the Spring!
Whom all things celebrate and sing.
          When glad from Hades' sombre home
          Back to the dear, dear earth I come,
The gods themselves, my way befriending,
          Look down on me with shining eyes benign,
And grant that, to my mother's arms ascending,
          Of miracles the loveliest shall be mine.

          Howe'er men speak my name
          I ever am the same,—
In herb and tree and vine and blossoming flower,
Regenerating, consecrating power.
          Youth am I and delight.
Astarte or Aurora, still the priest
Of mysteries beneficently bright.
The vivifying glory of the East,
The Spring, in vesture of transparent dyes
'Broidered with blossoms and with butterflies,
The door that leads from gloomy vasts of Death,—
I resurrection am!—new life! new breath!

"Éastre" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

Signed and inscribed Easter greeting
from Florence Earle Coates
found within the pages of
a volume of The Unconquered Air (1912)

PSYCHE, a poem

SOFTLY, with palpitating heart,
She came to where he lay concealed apart.
The lamp she held intensified the gloom
And in the dusk wrought shadowy shapes of doom.

     Her starry eyes
O'er-brimmed with troubled tears,
Her pulses throbbing wildly in her ears,
     She stood beside him where he lay,
Hushed in the deep
Of sweet, unconscious sleep.
     But as she stifled back her sighs
And tried to look upon that cherished form,
Remembrance shook her purpose warm,
     And, chiding, seemed to say,—
"Why seek to solve, why, curious, thus destroy
The mystery of joy?
     What doubt unblest, what faithless fear is this
That tempts to paths none may retrace,
That moves thee, fond one! to unveil the face
     Of bliss?
Is 't not enough to feel it thine?
Like Semele, wouldst gaze on the Divine?
Secret the soul of Rapture dwells;
Love gives, yet jealous tests repels,
Nor will of force be known,
And bashful Beauty viewed too near—is gone."

"Psyche" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (March 1887), Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

TO BRITANNIA, a poem

Wikimedia

On seeing a picture of the cairn and cross under which lie Captain Scott and his men

BRITANNIA, they who perished here have crowned thee—
     Have proved the dauntless temper of thy soul;
Great memories of the past, through them have found thee
     Intrepid as of old, untouched and whole.

Triumphant Mother! Make an end to sighing
     For these, thrice happy!—with sonorous breath
Let bugles sing their requiem who are lying
     In all the full magnificence of death!

They knew not failure: dream and aspiration
     They knew, indeed, and love, and noble joy;
And at the last faith brought them the elation
     That Destiny is powerless to destroy.

The utmost summit of desire attaining,
     What further is there left deserving strife?
Ah, there is still the peerless hope remaining,—
     In death to prove one's worthiness of life!

Sublime thy grief, Britannia! sons have crowned thee—
     With hard-won laurels have enwreathed thy name:
Have shown the world the bulwark set around thee,
     Adding new consecration to thy fame.

Nor have they blessed thee, only: Fate defying,
     Others in lands remote shall fear contemn,
And find it easier, themselves denying,
     To die like heroes, too,—remembering them.

They do not lie in lonely graves forsaken,
     Who for high ends can so supremely dare;
From human hearts they can no more be taken,
     And Immortality is with them there.

"To Britannia" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Poems (1916) Volume I and as "In Remembrance: The Antarctic Heroes of 1912" in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (July 1913).

SAINT THERESA, a poem

Therese von Avila (1615)
by Peter Paul Rubens

WEARY and long the winding way;
     Yet as I fare, to comfort me,
Still o'er and o'er I tell the beads
     Of love's perfected rosary.

The fire that once hath pierced the heart,
     If from above, must upward flame,
Nor falter till it find at last
     The burning fountain whence it came.

O fire of love within my breast—
     O pain that pleads for no surcease—
Fill me with fervor!—more and more,
     Give me thy passion and thy peace!

O love, that mounts to paths of day
     Untraversed by the soaring lark,
O love, through all the silent night
     A lamp to light the boundless dark,

O love, whose dearest pangs I bear,
     This heart—this wounded heart—transform!
That all who seek its shelter may
     There find a refuge safe and warm.

Were there no heaven of high reward,
     Man's service here to crown and bless,
Were there no hell,—I, for love's sake,
     Would toil with ardent willingness.

And if—O Thou that pitiest
     The fallen, lone, and tempest-tost!—
If, Love Divine, Thou wilt but save
     Whom I do love, none shall be lost!

"St. Theresa" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Outlook (5 January 1907), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

Keywords: Teresa of Avila, Teresa of Jesus

EURYDICE, a poem

Orpheus and Eurydice (1806)
by Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein-Stub
Wikimedia Commons

I HEAR thy voice!—
     Ah, love, I hear thy voice!
Faint as the sound of distant waters falling,
I hear thy voice above me calling, calling,—
And my imprisoned heart,
Long held from thee apart,
     Responsive thrills, half-tempted to rejoice.

     In Hades though I be,
Where the unnumbered dead abide
In uneventful, sunless eventide,
     I yet live on,—for thou rememberest me!
And like to far-off waters falling,
I hear thee, from the distance, calling,—
     Eurydice! Beloved Eurydice!

     In thy bright world I know,
     The firstlings of the Spring begin to blow:
Moss-violet and saffron daffodil
Their perfumes new distil,
And through the veiled elysian hours,—
Sweeter for wafted scent of citron-flowers,—
     Voices of nightingales soft come and go.

     The halcyon again
     Contented broods beside the quiet main;
The ringdove tells her wound
With throbbing breast, and undulating sound
Which still, thy passion wronging,
Awakes in thee the wilder, lonelier longing.
     And still my buried heart reflects thy pain!

     Of yore I had a dream:
I thought—the awful sentinel asleep—
     Thou, with that lyre divine, supreme,
Which first drew Argo downward to the deep,
     Entering here, where chains are never riven,
     Had with thy golden strain, Apollo given,
Taught Dis, the pitiless, himself, to weep:

     I had a dream of yore:
I thought Love, mightier than Death,
     Wide opened the inexorable door,
And offered me pure draughts of sun-warmed breath.
I saw thy form; trembling, I seemed to follow,—
When, sudden, to these rayless caverns hollow
     Fate caught me back—thee to behold no more!
     .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .

     Yet still I wait for thee!
     And thou wilt come!—wilt come—wilt come to me!
The hours delay; I make no moan,—
Apart from thee,—yet not alone,—
Sweeter than far-off music sighing,
I hear thy voice forever crying:—
     "Eurydice!—lost, lost Eurydice!"

"Eurydice" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lyrics of Life (1909), Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (March 1910, as "Che Faro Senza Eurydice!") and Poems (1916) Volume II.

BEETHOVEN, a poem

Bust statue of Ludwig van Beethoven
by Hugo Hagen. Photographed in 1898.

HE cursed the day that he was born:
     And deaf and desolate,
Resolved, in bitterness forlorn,
     To end his hapless fate.

But as the deeper silence grew,—
     An exile from the throng,
His yearning spirit voices drew
     From inner founts of song;

And he who called unfriendly death
     To calm rebellious strife,
Won from his own despair the breath
     Of an immortal life.

"Beethoven" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

I KNOW NOT HOW TO FIND THE SPRING, a poem

I KNOW not how to find the Spring,
     Though violets are here,
And in the boughs high over me
     The birds are fluting clear;
The magic and the melody,
     The rapture—all are fled,
And could they wake, they would but break
     My heart, now you are dead.

"I know not how to find the Spring" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Scribner's Magazine (March 1904), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

ON A POET TOO EARLY DEAD, a poem

WHEN to the undesired home
     Where you are queen, Persephone,
The Dreamer had untimely come,
Surely, I think for one brief hour
A brightness must have touched your gloom,
And that your yearning must have caught,
From something that his presence brought,
A breath of Enna bloom.

About your throne, so wintry lone,
     O sorrow-veiled Persephone!
I think bright visions, once your own,
Must pale have blossomed into flower:
That there, your home-sick heart to greet,
Narcissus, wraith-like, must have sprung
While memory gave plaintive tongue
To song Sicilian sweet.

If he, who plucked the asphodel,
     Brought you one breath, Persephone,
Of the fair meads you loved so well
And dream of, pensive, hour by hour,—
Oh, tell him, who with shades must live,
Vexed by forlorn regrettings vain,
How mortals, mid earth's greater pain,
May, loving, all forgive!

"On a Poet too early Dead" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Poems (1916) Volume II.

CORA, a poem

I

          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,
And fair Narcissus hangs his head and dreams.
There,—laughing, blushing, like a happy bride,

          With tears in her sweet eyes
          To kiss away—shyly
The Maiden comes, and, as she moves along,
The woods and waking wolds intone her praise.

          I, too, where all things tell
          Of Autumn chill and blight,—
I, too, will praise her, ay, with transport hymn
The unforgotten sweetness of the spring.

 III

          How desolate were Man
          If, robbed of dear delight,
He might not with remembrance fond pursue
And find his happiness, and lead it back!

          The mournful Stygian shades
          Were less forlorn than he;
For they have memory, and cannot lose
Bright visions once in conscious bliss possessed!

          Through Hades' wailful halls,
          Bereft of Proserpine,
They pensive glide, yet feel the far, sweet spring,
And seem to breathe lost Enna's distant flowers.

"Cora" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

THE RETURN OF PROSERPINE, a poem

The Return of Persephone (1891)
by Frederic Leighton

TO welcome her the Mother wakes
     The myriad music of her rills,
And trims the border of her lakes
     With sun-lit daffodils:
Softly she counterpanes the leas,
     With primrose-bloom bedecks the vales,
     While answering her wooing gales
Come ruby-pied anemones;
And as her wintry doubts depart,
     And brightening hopes foretell the morrow,
Such happiness o'erflows her heart
     There 's left no room for sorrow!

"The Return of Proserpine" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

O GIORNO FELICE!

MY store is spent; I am fain to borrow:
     Give me to drink of a vintage fine!
Pour me a draught—a draught of To-morrow,
     Brimming and fresh from a rock-cool shrine:
Nectar of earth,
For the longing and dearth
Of a heart still young,
That waiteth and waiteth a song unsung!

Glad be the strain!
In the cup pour no pain:
Leave at the brim not a taste of sorrow!
     Spring would I sing! For the bird flies free,
     The sap is astir in the oldest tree,
And the Maiden weaves,
Mid a laughter of leaves,
     The bud and the blossom of joys to be! . . .

Ay, Winter took all;
But I heard the Spring call,
And my heart, denied,
With a rapturous shiver—
Like that that makes eager the pulse of the river
     When something at last tells it Winter is past—
Awoke at the sound of her voice, and replied.
     A libation to Spring!—ah, quickly! pour fast!
She is there! She is here!—in the sky—on the sea—
In the Morning-Land waiting my heart and me!

"O Giorno Felice!" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (July 1912), The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

PERSEPHONE, a poem

THE wild bird's first exultant strain
     Says,—"Winter is over—over!"
And spring returns to the world 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!

For on a day she went away,
     Long ere the leaves were falling,
And came no more for the whitethroat's lay,
     Or the pewee's plaintive calling.

In tender tints on her broidered shoon
     Blossomed the leaves of the myrtle,
And silky buds of the darling June
     Were gathered up in her kirtle;

And fair, fair, fair, in her sunlit hair
     Were violets intertwining,
That seemed more fresh and unfading there
     Than with dewdrops on them shining!

She hid them all in her dim retreat;
     But, heart! a truce to sighing;
She's here—incomparably sweet,
     Unchanging and undying!

We see her brow, and we rejoice,
     Her cheek, as it pales and flushes,
We hear once more in her thrilling voice
     The note of the woodland thrushes;

And through her lashes, tear-empearled,
     A mystic light is breaking,
And all the love of the whole wide world
     Seems in her eyes awaking!

"Persephone" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (April 1901), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

Wikimedia Commons

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, a poem

1836-1907

WE celebrate with pomp and pride
     A Cromwell or a Wellington;
We venerate who, self-denied,
     Earth's higher victories have won;
But through the all-remembering years,
We love who give us smiles and tears.

The voice that charmed us may grow still,
     The poet cease to weave his spell:
Ascended to the skyey hill
     Remote, where the immortals dwell,—
Time to our thought but more endears
     Who gave us smiles and gave us tears.

"Thomas Bailey Aldrich" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Writer (April 1907) and Lyrics of Life (1909).

DIVINATION, a poem

HOW do you know the Spring is nigh,
          Heart, my heart?
Is it a something in the sky?
Is it a perfume wafted by?
Or is it your own longing's cry—
          Heart, my heart?

Oh, yes, I know you 've ways to tell,
          Heart, my heart,
When Spring released from Winter's spell
Sows amaranth and asphodel:
Ways tender and impalpable,
          Heart, my heart:

Signs that have never yet betrayed,
          Heart, my heart:—
The bluebird's note in a leafless glade,
An answering rapture, half afraid,
The dream-filled eyes of a shy, sweet maid,—
          Heart, my heart!

"Divination" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

THE IRISH SHAMROCK IN SOUTH AFRICA, a poem

O LITTLE plant, so meek and slight,
     Tinct with the emerald of the sea
Which like a mother, day and night,
          Croons melodies to thee;
Emblem of Erin's hope and pride!
Though crushed and trampled under foot,
          Thou still art found
          The meadows round,
Up-springing from thine own sweet root!

Of sorrow thou hast been the sign
     Through weary, unforgiving years;
The dews upon thy tender vine
     Have seemed thy country's tears;
Now, now, forevermore, thou art
     Symbol of all that's brave and true—
          Blest as a smile
          Of thy sunlit isle,
In the Old World honored, and the New!

     For they lie asleep in a land of strangers,—
Far from the home their fame endears—
     The Inniskillings, the Connaught Rangers,
               The Dublin Fusiliers;
     And the little plant they loved so well—
          Better than fairest flower that blows—
               Is set apart
               In Britannia's heart
     With the Scottish thistle and the rose:

     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!

"The Irish Shamrock in South Africa" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

THE CLOUDS, a poem

THE clouds give back to earth again
     The moisture they absorb;
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,
Interrogate the oracle,
     When God is close at hand.

And still the clouds go drifting by,
     Or fall in fruitful rain;
High over us the stars, undimmed,
     Benignant shine again;

And from that temple, viewless, vast,
     Where failure is unknown,
The Father of existences
     Keeps watch above his own.

"The Clouds" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

AN ADIEU, a poem

SORROW, quit me for a while!
     Wintry days are over;
Hope again, with April smile,
     Violet sows and clover.

Pleasure follows in her path,
     Love itself flies after,
And the brook a music hath
     Sweet as childhood's laughter.

Not a bird upon the bough
     Can repress its rapture,
Not a bud that blossoms now
     But doth beauty capture. . . .

Sorrow, thou art Winter's mate,
     Spring cannot regret thee;
Yet, ah, yet—my friend of late—
     I shall not forget thee!

"An Adieu" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (July 1913) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

Trivia: "An Adieu" was read by actress Jenny Agutter in A Schubert Song Cycle performance featuring baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Susie Allan.

BASE-BORN, a poem

MY parents had great joy, I wis,
     Of their young days of love.
In thought they were as deathless gods,
     Mere human laws above:
As deathless gods! But I?—alas!
     Of joy what can I tell?
Who am but as a broken vase
     Beside a brimming well.

My parents in each other's eyes
     Beheld the heavenly stars,
And found in one another's arms
     The bliss that heaven unbars:
They vowed when pleasure filled the cup
     None should resist its spell:
They quaffed,—and emptied me of joy,
     Beside life's brimming well!

"Base-Born" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

FRITZ SCHEEL, a poem

A TRIBUTE

HE gave his life to Music,—gave—
     For love, not hire,—himself denying;
His body rests, o'erwearied, in the grave,
     But Music lives and gives him life undying.

In the deep silence, may he hear
     Such harmonies as he could wake,
And O, may some faint accents reach his ear
     From the great City's heart that sorrows for his sake!

"Fritz Scheel" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Book News Monthly (? 1907) and in Lyrics of Life (1909).

Fritz Scheel was "a German conductor, and the first musical director of the Philadelphia Orchestra." (Wikipedia) He was born 7 November 1852 and died 13 March 1907.

DAPHNIS, a poem

HAIL, Solitude! hail, maiden coy and sweet!
The vesper veil descends,—hail, nymph discreet!
We would awhile forget the din and roar
Of feverous life, contending evermore,—
     Lead to thy hush'd retreat!

Where shall we find thee, who desire thee so?
Where 'midst the lengthening shadows dost thou go?
Where slumberest thou when stars the night adorn?
     Where glide thy feet at morn?

Seek they that rugged promontory
Where Athos towers lone above the sea?
Stray they where 'gainst the mountains hoary
Axenos moaning beats incessantly?
Or all the day in some shy sylvan nook,
Where cowslips pale and daffadillies blow,
Tread they the mellow turf, or weedy brook
Whose wimpling waters prattle as they flow?

Goddess with breath of balm,
What dear contentments nestle in thy calm!
The leveret and the fawn pursue
Thy paths through coverts dim, the halcyon blue,
By seas Ægean, grieved remembrance heals.
     As she thy joyance feels,
And far below the merry-twinkling waves,
Bright Thetis breathes thy praise in orient caves.

And here, in this delightful wood,
Where saucy elves and winsome fairies bide,
We, also, would draw near thee, Solitude,
     And lay our cares aside:
Draw near thee, nymph demure, and drain,
From flowery cups that know no touch profane,
The dews, delicious brimming,
     Recline where poppies, purple-hued,
Droop low in lovely lassitude,
While belted bees in amorous mood
O'er thymy beds are swimming,
Or musing 'neath some drowsy hemlock, gain
The sweet Morphæan anodyne for pain.

Long, long ago, to such seclusion—
Filled with accusing shame and grieved confusion—
Life's noontide dark, its promise dead,
The youthful Daphnis fled.
Child of the God, ill could he brook
That curious eyes should gaping look
     Upon the sightless face,
Where, deeply written, burned his deep disgrace.
Fearful of wrongs he could not see,
He brought his bruisèd heart to thee.

And thou with solemn stillness didst caress him.
Forbearing to afflict with comfort crude,
Mistimed advice or cheap solicitude,
Thou with thy mild tranquillity didst bless him.
Thou didst not proffer fond, unmeaning words;
But whisperings of leaves, and notes of birds,
And breathings of fresh flowers; things which stole
Through the unlighted chambers of his soul,
And made him—how, he knew not—less alone.
Like dreams that come where misery hath slept,
Recalling tender hopes and pleasures flown,
     He welcomed them, and wept.

Then with unsteady hand from out his breast
He drew the pipe of Pan—the reedy flute
That long neglected in inglorious rest,
Dark, like his vision, lay there cold and mute.
Up to his quivering lips he raised it slowly;
A moment paused, then blew a fainting strain:
His rigid brow relaxed, his head drooped lowly,
He felt the old, the sweet, immortal pain!
Again the mellow, melting notes he tried,—
Again meek Echo caught her breath and sighed.

Then freer, stronger, lovelier grew the lay;
Uncertain fears fled guiltily away;
The lilies, listening, paled, the breeze grew whist,
The violets flushed to deeper amethyst,
The restless Hours, departing, longed to stay.
And he forgot his melancholy state,
Fair Nomia's blissful love and fatal hate,—
In the rapt exaltation of his mind,
Forgot that he was blind;
And poured that moving music in thine ear,
Which still Sicilian shepherds in the dawn
And deepening twilight, from some balmy lawn
Or grove of Ætna, fondly think they hear.

"Daphnis" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

On this day in 1901

On this day in 1901, Andrew Carnegie begins building public libraries. It was at the home of Andrew Carnegie in 1883 that Florence Earle Coates first meets Matthew Arnold—during Arnold's first visit to, and lecture tour of, America.

A DÉBUTANTE, a poem

             AT last, for weariness,
She slept, yet breathed in dreams a fragrance of success
     Sweeter to her desires than cooling showers,
     Than honey hived in flowers,
Or than those notes which ere the night is done,
Are shyly fluted forth in worship of the sun.
             The longed-for prize
     Her own, again she heard delighted plaudits rise,
     Again her conquest read in beaming eyes,
And scanned each upturned face, and missed but one!

             "O love," she, dreaming, sighed,—
In joy grown sudden sad, and lonely in her pride,—
     "O love, dost thou, of all the world, not care
     These triumphs dear to share?
Dost thou, who sued in griefs to bear a part,
Who lightened discontent, and soothed with heavenly art,
             Forbearing blame—
     Remove when all besides with praises speak my name?"
     Distinct, yet as from far, the answer came:
"Love still demands an undivided heart!"

"A Débutante" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (March 1890) and Poems (1898).

LOVE CONQUERS DEATH, a poem

LOVE conquers Death by night and day,
Beguiles him long of his destined prey;
     And when, at last, that seems to perish
     Which he hath striven still to cherish,
Love plucks the soul from the fallen clay.

Death is not master, but Love's slave,
He smites the timid and the brave;
     Yet as he fares, with sweet low laughter,
     Love, the sower, follows after,
Scattering seed in each new-made grave!

"Love Conquers Death" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (April 1895), Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

CRUEL LOVE—ANACREONTIC, a poem

I LOOKED from out my window once
     And saw Love standing there;
No cloak had he to cover him,
     His dimpled feet were bare,
And fast and chill the snowflakes fell
     On his ambrosial hair.

He lifted up to mine a face
     Filled with celestial light;
Fond, fond with pity grew my heart
     To see his hapless plight,
And down I sped to offer him
     Warm shelter for the night:—

"Come in, come in, thou tender child,
     A wanderer from thine own!
Hath all the world abandoned thee,
     That thou art thus alone?
Come in, come in! that straightway I
     For others may atone!"

I took his icy hand in mine,—
     Why swifter throbbed each vein?
Was it the impulse of my blood
     To ease his frozen pain?—
Yet still his lips refused to smile,
     Still fell his tears like rain.

Bashful he seemed, as half inclined
     To shiver there apart:
I led him closer to the fire,
     I drew him to my heart:
Ah, cruel Love! my trustful breast
     He wounded with a dart!

Ah, cruel Love! He smiled at last—
     A wondrous smile to see!
And passing from my sheltering door,
     With step alert and free,
He took my warmth, my joy with him,—
     His tears he left to me!

"Cruel Love—Anacreontic" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (July 1907), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

AFTER THE PLAY, a poem

YOU say I'm dying! It is so, I think:
All pain has left me, and I seem to sink—
A child, content, back to the Mother's breast.
Life grew full sweet of late,—but death is best.

I wanted just this one last quiet hour
To tell you how hope grew fruition's flower,—
Giving me, in a moment, bliss to know,
Beyond what tranquil ages might bestow.

You must not weep, my friend! Consider still
How many lives go frustrate of their will;
How many spend in vain, and fruitless tire!—
I near the goal of my supreme desire.

Your tears reproach the happiness I feel,
And from this dear contentment something steal.
Smile, if you can, beloved! nor delay
What I would tell you ere I go my way.
·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·     ·     ·
Love gives but as Love will: this have I proved,
Who through long wistful years have vainly loved,
Yet find my life at last on death's sheer brink—
From lethal fountains purest rapture drink.
·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·     ·     ·
You know 't was not my right to dream of her,
Though I had served her long—love's pensioner—
Grateful for modest favor at her hands,
For mere acceptance, or for mild commands;

But on that night, across the theatre
I saw her come, and felt the restless stir
Of mad desires held in leash till then:
A longing to stand equal with the men

Who, for no merit, dared to keep her side,
Suspecting not the barriers that divide
Natures like hers from those of meaner birth.
I knew her throned above me, felt the worth

Of things they recked not of—her richest dower—
Yet longed that life should yield me for one hour
The right to stand before her—even as these?
Nay; but the right to fall before her knees,

To touch in worship her white garment's hem,
To win the smile so lightly given them
Because her heart with happiness o'erflowed,
Unconscious of the largess it bestowed.

Ah, me!—to think, what barren pain I felt!
Hopeless as one who in a desert dwelt,
Exiled from all that made his soul's delight,
I gazed upon her,—was it, friend, last night?

The Play—what matter? It drew near the end,
Scarce marked by me. You know the rest, my friend:
Waiting I sat there full of sad desire,
When, suddenly, it came—that cry of "Fire!"

How suddenly! I started to my feet:
But—as when two on-rushing torrents meet
And break the one the other—mad with fear,
The panic-stricken people, deaf to hear

Counsel or warning, in that burning tomb
Hurtled each other, battling to their doom.
Kind God, blot out the scene—soon past!
I to a column near me clinging fast,

Resisted the fell tide that onward bore
Its helpless prey with hideous uproar.
Twice had I lost my footing; yet I clave,
As one who struggles more than life to save,—

My every thought of her; but when at last,
Sore bruised and breathless, as one shoreward cast
After rude shipwreck, I dared raise my eyes,
Seeking in that vast Hell my Paradise,—

There, like some virgin image carved in stone,
She stood in her white radiance—alone.
Where were the men that loved her, as they said?
Ah, bitter "where"! They, all, too rashly fled,

Had entered that ignoble human strife,
Paying a shameful price for paltry life.
She read my soul, I think; and then—she smiled.
Nay, friend,—imagine not my speech grown wild!

I tell you true: in that appalling place
She smiled—the calm of Heaven in her face:
Her service had been long my soul's emprise;
Yet a new, wistful wonder lit her eyes,

And pale—ay, pale as Hades' death-crowned queen,
Across the fatal barriers between,
Her glad look seemed to say:—"At last, I know!
You, who alone have loved me, could not go!

"All help were vain. Stay!—let me see your face!"
So plead the look; then, with a poignant grace,
Her form bent toward me, her white arms apart,
She gave me the veiled secret of her heart.

Think you we marked the fiery sepulchre
In which we stood,—thence nevermore to stir?
A glory strange enwrapt us. Then, my friend,
I woke, and saw your face, and knew the end,—

Not that which you suppose—the end of strife,
Not dissolution—and not loss—but life!
·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·     ·     ·
I think she felt no anguish, knew no fear,
So mercifully swift the flames drew near;

For, even as she smiled, narcotic death
Enveloped her and stifled her sweet breath;
And the fire passed her by and left her there,
Like to a sleeping child, untouched and fair.
·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·      ·     ·     ·
All—all that life withheld—is mine at last!
With love, with God,—believe me,—there's no past.
The future waits; it calls—I must not stay!
The night is over,—look! the dawn of Day!

"After the Play" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

DITTY: MY TRUE LOVE'S EYES, a poem

MY true-love's eyes are a surprise
     To put an end to ranging;
They vary so,—come weal, come woe,—
     One can but watch their changing!

Sometimes they shine with light divine,—
     Twin deeps where moonbeams hover,—
Anon they seem like stars agleam,
     With laughter brimming over.

My true-love's mouth is as the south
     In time of blossom, sunny;
A rose, in death, bequeathed it breath,
     And bees have lent it honey.

But oh, her heart is still the art,
     The magic fresh and living,
That wins the free her slaves to be
     By its own gift of giving!

"Ditty: My True Love's Eyes" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Independent (7 March 1895), Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

DU MAURIER, a poem

George du Maurier

TWO rocked his infant cradle as he slept,
     And crooned for him their native lullabies.
     One gave her sense of beauty to his eyes,
One taught his heart her smiles, the tears she wept.
Each made him love her as the child his home,
     And, mother-wise, reclaimed his wandering glance:
     Belovèd England and belovèd France,—
Each drew him, though, afar, he could not come.

In his imagination, fleur-de-lis
     And English daisy blossomed side by side,
And dreams were his, lost transports to renew.
Half exiled wheresoe'er he chanced to be,
     Like migrant birds his thoughts went soaring wide,
Wooed onward by the vision of the True!

"Du Maurier" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

MEMORIA, a poem

Autograph manuscript poem signed
"Memoria" by Florence Earle Coates

IF only in my dreams I may behold you,
     Still hath the day a goal;
If only in my dreams I may enfold you,
     Still hath the night a soul.
Leaden the hours may press upon my spirit,
     Nor one dear pledge redeem,—
I will not chide, so they at last inherit
     And crown me with the rapture of that dream.

Ten thousand blossoms earth's gay gardens cherish;
     One pale, pale rose is mine.
Of frost or blight the rest may quickly perish,—
     Not so that rose divine.
Deathless it blooms in quiet realms Elysian;
     And when toil wins me rest,
Forgetful of all else, in blissful vision
     I breathe my rose, and clasp it to my breast!

"Memoria" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in the Atlantic Monthly (October 1890), and subsequently in Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

On this day in 1886

Florence Earle Coates pre-1894

A reception is held at the Penn Club in Philadelphia in honor of French author Madamme Henri Gréville.  Florence Earle Coates is in attendance.  In the Philadelphia Inquirer society pages, on May 13th, 1894, Marianna F. McCann writes the following descriptive piece about an encounter she had with Mrs. Coates during the reception:

As a special act of indulgence the writer was taken as a very young girl to a reception given in Philadelphia at the old rooms of the "Penn Club," in honor of Madame Henri Gréville [most likely the reception which occurred on March 5th, 1886]; and there she met one who impressed her far more deeply than did the plump little author of "Dosia," [La Fille de Dosia (1876)] with her velvet frock and too-tight kid gloves. I was completely captivated by a tall, slender woman, with a luminously white face, great black eyes, and a patrician way of moving about. I was presented, and when she spoke to me I was strangely stirred by a voice deep and vibrative with feeling. That voice would have made the fortune of a tragic actress—by which I do not mean at all that it was "grief-charged." There were splendid diamonds in her ears and very splendid eyes in her head; and I know I tried to decide which were more dazzling—the little cut balls of crystallized carbon or those dark orbs, prismatically so beautiful and yet warm with soul. I did not then think to ask myself if she were beautiful, for the possessor of the splendid eyes seemed to exhale wit, sentiment and eloquence as easily as the rose does perfume or the child innocence. Her conversation was perfectly delightful and not a little bewildering. Later on, I confided my enraptured impression of this fascinating woman to a very ancient and clever old lady; in my enthusiasm I made free use of the personal pronouns "she" and "her," quite omitting to be more definite. "O, ho," she broke in before I had half finished my eulogy, "you've been talking with Florence Earle Coates. She can write a fine poem, but she does not stop at that—she is one." Mrs. Coates is the very incarnation of contradiction. The action of her life is cast along the lines of conventional routine; but the hidden and real existence of the woman is carried on miles beyond and above all material concerns, in the pure ether of the poet's realm. She will shut herself up with the "wide-eyed muse" to round a sonnet of majestic reach, or she will merge into the gay world, the laces of a duchess about her, precious stones at her throat and glowing roses on her breast, there to dazzle all listeners with her conversation, in which bon mot, persiflage, eloquence and philosophy are interwoven. She is a "fine lady," and yet her poetry is never tainted by "fine ladyism." She is a blue stocking, but with none of the unlovely signs of bluestockingism about her. Another woman with Mrs. Coates' voice, mobile face, and evident histrionic instinct would have dashed away front the conventional life and sought vent for the "tempest within" in the mimic world of the stage, but Mrs. Coates is mistress of a perfectly ordered home. Mrs. Coates is a Yankee of the Yankees. On three sides she is descended from the founders of New England, one of her anscestors being one of the five companions of Roger Williams when he commenced the settlement of Providence. She is also a great-niece of General Anthony Wayne.—Marianna F. McCann

TO-DAY, a poem

WHERE hast thou gone, my Day?
     I meant to follow,
Extracting from thine every hour its sweet;
     But thou, beguiling hope with pledges hollow,
Art flown on wingèd feet.

Hardly I greet thy morn,
     The glory dwindles;
And as I plan thy moments with delight,
     The evening-primrose in my pathway kindles
Her taper for the night.

Ah, too precipitate!
     Might I not linger
To gather a stray blossom by the way,
     But pointing onward with thy warning finger,
Thou must outstrip me, Day?

Gladly I welcomed thee,
     An eager lover
Who deemed he knew each fleeting moment's cost,
     Is there no way, no method, to recover
The treasure I have lost?

Ah, no! From Time, alas!
     One may not borrow;
Nor move him what is squandered to restore.
     The tide flows back, and there may dawn a morrow.
     Thee I shall find no more.

"To-day" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (March 1906), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

LIFE, a poem

THOU art more ancient than the oldest skies,
But youth forever glances from thine eyes;
     Time wars against thee, and consumes thy fires,
Yet, wingèd, thou from ashes dost arise!

"Life" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (July 1889), Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

A FAREWELL, a poem

"The utmost for the highest."—Motto of George F. Watts.

AVE! Thou goest from us,
     Apart from us to dwell;
Through sacrifice to find thyself.
     Ave!—but not farewell.

Thou hast dreamed a dream of Leisure;
     Thou hast heard her call thy name,—
The handmaid of enduring Art,
     Who feeds the quenchless flame,—
And after the Ideal
     Thou wistfully would'st fare,
Before whose shrine 't is blest to wait,
     Though ne'er to enter there!

Go forth,—for thou hast willed it,
     Untrammelled as the sea!
To find new forms of loveliness,
     Go forth! Lo, thou art free
To hope, to learn, to listen,
     To be breathed upon, inspired,
To wait on the unhasting gods,
     With soul intent, untired;

Careless of gain or profit,
     Of markets, or applause,
To yield thy heart to Nature's heart,
     To learn her dearer laws;
To gaze beyond the present,—
     From the fleeting view of things,
To lift the vision up and up;
     To feel the growth of wings;

Through love and self-denial,
     To gain at last the goal
That hidden from the vulgar gaze
     Beckons the purer soul;
Naught asking of the moment,
     Content to strive and strive,
Knowing when lesser gods depart,
     The gods themselves arrive!

 

Ave! Thou goest from us,
     Apart from us to dwell;
Through sacrifice to find thyself.
     Ave!—but not farewell!

"A Farewell" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

For the 75th Birthday of William Dean Howells

Mrs. Coates was in attendance at a dinner celebrating the 75th birthday of writer William Dean Howells (1 March 1912) held at Sherry's in NYC on 2 March 1912. The event was hosted by Harper's Weekly editor, Col. George Harvey. Also in attendance was President William Howard Taft, who gave an opening address. Mrs. Coates also wrote a poem in honor of the occasion:

Seventy-five glad years of blessing,
     And the hope of blessing more;
Memories the heart caressing,
     Dreams that beckoning wait, before;

Life—full life, made rich by giving:
     Life that can create, and lend
To the poor—delight in living,
     To the lonely—many a friend

Wisdom that can teach through laughter—
     Seeming but to entertain,
Or through pathos which, thereafter,
     Leaves no dull, regretful pain;

Years of blessing, years of kindness,
     And the courage that can smile
Though the eyes be dim to blindness
     With a sorrow, hid the while,—

These are thine, thou selfless schemer,
     Chanter of brave carmina:
These thy gifts to us, dear dreamer,—
     Traveler from Altruria.

"For the Birthday of William Dean Howells" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Unconquered Air (1912).

Mrs. Coates also wrote "The Singer"—alternatively titled "A Traveller from Altruria"—based on Howells' Utopian novel, A Traveler from Altruria (1894).

William Dean Howells
(1837-1920)

On this day in 1810

Frédéric Chopin was born on 1 March 1810, forty years before the birth of Mrs. Coates. It was said of Coates that "to her poetic temperament, Chopin's music made such a strong appeal" and that "her rendering of Chopin was different from, and practically superior to, that of other performers." ("Florence Earle Coates" in Woman's Progress, May 1895)