JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER, a poem

James McNeill Whistler (self portrait)
(1834-1903)

GREATEST of modern painters, he is dead!—
     Whistler, in whom death seemed to have no part:
     He of the nimble wit and jocund heart,
Who sipped youth's nectar at the fountain-head,
And felt its wine through all his veins run red:
     Who worshiped the ideal—not the mart,
     And blessed the world with an imperial Art,
Whereby who longs for beauty may be fed!

When things men deem momentous are forgot,
Laurels will bloom for him that wither not;
     And Death's inverted torch shall fail to smother
The light of genius, tender and sublime,
Which with austere restraint, and for all time,
     Painted the gentle portrait of the "Mother"!

"James McNeill Whistler" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (November 1903), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

Whistler's Mother (1871), or Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1

THE WHITE-THROATED SPARROW, a poem

"When the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows."

WOULD you feel the witching spell
     Of the whitethroat, listen!
There are secrets he can tell
Of the marsh, and of the dell
     Where the dewdrops glisten.

Poet of the brooding pine
     And the feathery larches,
Dawn-lit summits seem to shine,
Lucent in each throbbing line,
     Under azure arches.

All his soul a floating song,—
     Sweet, too sweet for sadness,—
At his bidding, hither throng
Memories that make us long
     With a plaintive gladness.

Ah, were all the woodland bare,
     Should those notes but quiver,
Straight I'd see it budding fair!—
And the lilies would be there,
     Floating on the river!

"The White-throated Sparrow" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (July 1911), The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

THE IDEAL, a poem

"Not the treasures is it that have awakened in me so-unspeakable a desire, but the Blue Flower is what I long to behold."—Novalis.

SOMETHING I may not win attracts me ever,—
     Something elusive, yet supremely fair,
Thrills me with gladness, but contents me never,
     Fills me with sadness, yet forbids despair.

It blossoms just beyond the paths I follow,
     It shines beyond the farthest stars I see,
It echoes faint from ocean caverns hollow,
     And from the land of dreams it beckons me.

It calls, and all my best, with joyful feeling,
     Essays to reach it as I make reply;
I feel its sweetness o'er my spirit stealing,
     Yet know ere I attain it I must die!

"The Ideal" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Atlantic Monthly (May 1891), Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

CIVILIZATION, a poem

OLD as the race of man,
     Young as the child new-born,
From glooms Plutonian
     I mount to paths of morn;
And as I move o'er vale and hill,
     Before me flees the night,
For on into the darkness still
     I bear my light.

The desert stayed me long
     Its fancied worth to tell;
The savage, subtle and strong,
     Opposed me, and he fell:
But the savage learned from conflict past
     To battle and succeed,
And the foolish desert came at last
     To bloom indeed.

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

The thing that hindereth
     My progress as I pass,
Is withered in my breath
     Like parchèd summer grass.
I hasten on, like the wind of God,
     That must unfettered blow,
Wooing the blossom from the sod
     Where'er I go.

I taught the Hindoo throng
     To worship: I awoke
The Pyrrhic phalanx strong,
     To break the Persian yoke:
I set great Pharaoh's captives free,
     The Tarquin's pride down-hurled,
And in a child of Galilee,
     O'ercame the world!

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