THERE'S A SPOT IN THE MOUNTAINS, a poem

Pasted into a copy of Poems (1916) Volume I inscribed by
Mrs. Coates to Amos N. Wilder (brother of Thornton Wilder)
August 30, 1923.

"Camp Elsinore" was the Coates' "spot in the mountains" where they would escape the heat of Philadelphia summers. Located by the Upper St. Regis Lake in the Adirondacks, the environment served as inspiration for much of Florence Earle Coates' nature poetry. Also located nearby was "Camp Katia" and "Camp Cobblestone" (on Spitfire Lake)—owned and built by her brother, George H. Earle, Jr.

THERE'S a spot in the mountains, where the dew, dear,
     Is laden with the odours of the pine,
Where the heavens seem unbounded, and their blue, dear,
     Is deepest where it mirrored seems to shine.

There, at morn and eve, with rapture old and new, dear,
     The thrushes sing their double song divine,
And the melody their voices breathe, of you, dear,
     Speaks ever to this happy heart of mine.

There's a cabin in the mountains, where the fare, dear,
     Is frugal as the cheer of Arden blest;
But contentment sweet and fellowship are there, dear,
     And Love, that makes the feast he honors—best!

There's a lake upon the mountains, where our boat, dear,
     Moves gayly up the stream or down the tide,
Where, amid the scented lily-buds afloat, dear,
     We dream the dream of Eden as we glide!

"There's a Spot in the Mountains" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Book News Monthly (October 1905), Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

Camp Elsinore
View more images at Wikimedia Commons

"ASK WHAT YOU WILL", a poem

Mrs. Coates with her niece, Florence Earle Johnson
Photo courtesy of Florence Earle Morrisey

ASK what you will, I must obey your hest!
Thus much, my lady-bird, seems manifest
     To you and me, who well each other know.
     What you, small tyrant, beg, I must bestow.
Come; falter not, but proffer your request!

Is it the flower I wear here on my breast?
My favorite nag? The book I love the best?
     Some dainty gown? Some brooch or necklace? No?
          Ask what you will!

See how the sun, down-sinking to his rest,
Gilds with his glory all the roseate west!
     I linger on, in life's chill afterglow.
     Nay; smile, beloved!—like your mother—so!
Stay but a moment! Now—my own! my blest!
          Ask what you will!

"Ask What You Will" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (August 1902), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

"Pour Prendre Conge" and UNBIDDEN, a poem

Calling card of Florence Earle Coates

On 1 May 1899, Mrs. Coates inscribes a copy of Poems (1898) to Mrs. G. Oram Ring (Elizabeth Clendenning Ring), to include two lines from her poem "India." Also within the volume is a calling card, likely left in parting from a gathering at the Ring's home. Mrs. Coates states that "Unbidden [posted below] is far too long to write in your book, but I shall hope to send it to you some day. Lovingly, F.E.C." The poem would later be published in Coates' 1904 book of verse, Mine and Thine, spanning seven pages. At the time, the Coates' lived at 5321 Baynton (formerly Hancock) Street in Germantown, PA ("Willing Terrace"—where a man's "worth is warrant for his welcome"). Around 1908, they moved into the city residing at 2024 Spruce Street.

Image courtesy of Florence Earle Morrisey

Elizabeth Clendenning Ring would write a biographical piece about Mrs. Coates entitled "Florence Earle Coates: Some Phases of Her Life and Poetry." It was published in the December 1917 issue of Book News Monthly.

UNBIDDEN

AS shakes the breast of giant Kaf
     When Allah's thunders near resound,
So nations quail before my wrath,
And shudder at its sound.

     The broad Euphrates bears my name
To Oman's waves triumphantly;
The lordly Indus sings my fame
To the wondering Indian sea.

     For me Khorasan tempers steel,
The Turkoman rears matchless steeds;
Azerbijan grows me her wine,
And luscious fruit for summer needs;
My peacock throne burns like a gem,
And stars blaze in my diadem.

     The mighty vie to honor me:
Kings at my table humbly sit,
And tributary satraps fret
When banished over-long from it.

     What then have I to do with thoughts
That blanch the cheek and chill the blood?
Some wretched slave may quake and start,
Who hast'ning through Ghilan's lone wood,
Hears ravening jackals distant howl,—
But I?  Nay, who doth not revere
The brazen doors my guards defend?
Who dares, unsummoned, enter here?

     Shall baseless terrors mock my peace,
And chide desired Sleep away?
Forbidding her to close mine eyes,
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?
No?—and the wind, you think, sounds so?
To me 't was as a stroke of doom,
Reverberate from some long ago.

     Well, since 't was nothing, speed the cheer!
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.
It vexed me men should disallow
A sound more dread than frenzy's shriek,—
And prate of a wind-blown bough!

     ·     ·     ·     ·     ·     ·     ·     ·

     Thine errand, sirrah!  Who's without
That may not be denied?
A stranger? And thou darest bring
His hests unbidden before thy king?

     A stranger? Though his need be stout,
And stubborn as his pride,
Is 't here that he should seek our face?
Command him to the appointed place,
And those who should provide!

     Ha! answerest thou? Not be denied?—
Grows life so worthless then?—
Go drive him hence, thou tiresome knave!
. . . Friends, to our feast again!
     This imbecile hath broke the cheer;
But day is distant yet,
And ere her joyless flags appear,
We'll pay mad pleasure's debt.

     Drink to all revels—foes to thought!
Drink, drink to poppy-trances deep!
And since from some sleep holds aloof,
To oblivion drink!—the dreamless sleep.

     Again that sound affronts the air!
Ill-omened wretch, proclaim thy care—
My soul thy pallor hates!
What hounds thee back?  Whence, whence this din?
The stranger?  He hath passed the gates—
And waiteth there—within?

     And waiteth there? . . . Admit him then:
Who hunts the panther to his den
Flies not the panther's rage.
. . . Fool! fool! Thou deem’st it wise to beard
Our fury? . . . Gods! the face I feared!

     At height of bloom, so cometh blight.
Avaunt! avaunt, thou withering sight!
Eternal pains begin:
I swoon to Hell's abysmal night,—
Ah, horror!—Back, my Sin!

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

"Lycidas is dead, and hath not left his peer!"

Matthew Arnold

(1822-1888)

On this day...in 1888

Matthew Arnold dies

Six years after Matthew Arnold passed into "quiet realms Elysian," Florence Earle Coates dedicated her pen in tribute to her friend and mentor, Matthew Arnold—British poet and cultural critic.  Coates and Arnold first met in New York in 1883 at the home of Andrew Carnegie, and soon formed a lasting friendship.  Arnold's last letter to Mrs. Coates is dated February 24, 1888, in which he speaks of his remembrance of his last visit to Philadelphia, and of her tulip-trees and maples.

Matthew Arnold

by Florence Earle Coates

The Century Magazine, April 1894: 931-7.

IT is told of one of our poets that, when in England, he was asked who took Matthew Arnold's place in America, and he answered, "Matthew Arnold." The reply would still be just, and, excepting as he fills it, the place of Matthew Arnold must long continue vacant. Men of genius are not replaced, and if, dying, they leave their work half done, the loss is irreparable. But Arnold's message was delivered, whether in verse or prose, with an amplitude and distinctness to which few messages may lay claim, and is "full of foretastes of the morrow." [read more...]

Poems on the "Titanic"

Wikimedia Commons
RMS Titanic

THE BAND OF THE TITANIC
"These are the immortal,—the fearless"—Upanishads

UP, lads! they say we've struck a berg, though there's no danger yet,—
     Our noble liner was not built to wreck!—
But women may have felt a shock they're needing to forget,
     And when there's trouble, men should be on deck.

Come!—now's the time! They're wanting us to brighten them a bit;
     Play up, my lads—as lively as you can!
Give them a merry English air! they want no counterfeit
     Like that down-hearted tune you just began!...

I think the Captain's worried, lads: maybe the thing's gone wrong;
     Well, we will show them all is right with us!
Of Drake and the Armadas now we'll play them such a song
     Shall make them of the hero emulous.

When boats are being lowered, lads, your place and mine are here,—
     Oh, we were never needed more than now!
When others go, it is for us those left behind to cheer,
     And I am glad, my lads, that we know how!

If it is Death that's calling us, we'll make a brave response;
     Play up, play up!—ye may not play again;
The prize that Nelson won at last, the chance that comes but once,
     Is ours, my lads!—the chance to die like men!

"The Band of the Titanic" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (July 1912), The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

THE "TITANIC"—AFTERMATH

O NATURE! overmastered by thy power,
Man is a hero still
And knighthood is in flower!
All save his tameless will
Thou can'st subdue by thine appalling might;
But failest utterly to quench his spirit's light.

Yea, though he seem, in conflict with thy strength,
A pygmy of the dust,
Heroic man, at length
Greater than thou, through trust,
Sovereign through something thou can'st not enslave,
Finds once again, in death, the life he scorned to save!

"The Titanic—Aftermath" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Unconquered Air (1912).

On 18 May 1912, the New York Times reports that Mr. and Mrs. Coates are among those aboard the S. S. Minnewaska en route to London.  This voyage would take place one month after the sinking of the Titanic.  Sometime between then and July 1912, Mrs. Coates would write "The Band of the Titanic." She would also pen "The Titanic—Aftermath" to be published in The Unconquered Air and Other Poems released in November of the same year.  The Coates' were likely headed to painter John McLure Hamilton's home in Murestead, Grove End Road, London, N. W., England, for it was there, during the summer of 1912, that Mr. Hamilton painted their portraits.

Edward H. Coates (1912)
by John McLure Hamilton

The Philadelphia Inquirer, on 10 November 1912, describes the portrait of Mrs. Coates (not shown) as possessing "to a marked degree the charm and vivacity of the sitter, and while it is not an unqualified success in the drawing of the head, the perspective of which is open to criticism, it resembles the curate's egg in the excellence of its parts.  The hands are sympathetic and really rather wonderful in their character."

On this day in 1895

Mrs. Coates is elected president of The Browning Society of Philadelphia.  She would serve as president from 1895 to 1903, and again from 1907 to 1908. See also President of the Browning Society of Philadelphia

Invitation to the 1895-96 Browning Society elections,
the year Mrs. Coates was elected president.

On this day in 1927: Florence Earle Coates dies

Church of the Redeemer
Bryn Mawr, PA
March, 2016

...They live indeed—the dead
By whose example we are upward led...

 
Florence Earle Coates died in Hahnemann Hospital, Philadelphia on 6 April 1927. In 1924 she "contracted a form of nephritis ["chronic interstitial nephritis" as per death certificate] which led to a cerebral hemorrhage and death three years later." (Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary, 1971.) A funeral service announcement clipping found opposite p. 109 in a copy of The Unconquered Air (1912) states that her funeral would be held at her home on April 9th at 2:00 pm.  Within the same pages holds a note stating that Mrs. Coates' poem "Immortal" was read at the funeral service.

Mrs. Coates is buried in the churchyard of the Church of the Redeemer in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania next to her husband Edward Hornor Coates. The inscription on Mrs. Coates' headstone, "THEY LIVE INDEED—THE DEAD BY WHOSE EXAMPLE WE ARE UPWARD LED", is taken from a memorial poem she wrote for Eliza Sproat Turner (who died ca. 1903) entitled "In Memory." Florence's husband's inscription, "HIGH THOUGHT SEATED IN A HEART OF COURTESY," is based on Sir Philip Sydney's description of an honorable man and gentleman.

Digital drawing by Sonja N. Bohm

On this day in 1830

Ellen Frances VAN LEER Earle, mother of Florence Earle Coates, was born on 5 April 1830, having descended from a family long members of the Society of Friends. Mrs. Earle died on 19 May 1892 in Germantown, PA. See also: "Mother"

Original image and retouch. Original courtesy of Florence Earle Morrisey,
from the scrapbook of Frances Earle Johnson (sister of Mrs. Coates).

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.

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

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)

HENRY JAMES, a poem

Read by Mrs. Coates at a meeting of the Browning Society on Thursday, March 2nd, 1916 on the death (28 February 1916) of Henry James:

YOU were not of one country. To one Race,
     Rather, you gave your spirit's full devotion.
Careless a little as to bounds of space
     Set by dividing hill or severing ocean,
An exiled patriot, wherever dwelling,
     An alien on either side the sea,
You gave your loyalty, through love's compelling,
     To English speech and English liberty.

We claim you—both, drawn closer through your coming,
     England and she that nursed you at her breast.
Beauty you loved, and ne'er from truth went roaming,
     Through all the long desire, the ardent quest.
Ah, never quite at home, but ever homing,
     Passionate pilgrim, you have found your rest!

"Henry James" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Poems (1916) Volume II.

On the "People's Poet"

Wikimedia Commons

On 27 February 1907, Mrs. Coates attended a dinner celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow at the National Arts Club in New York. Mrs. Coates' poem, "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow," was published in Harper's Weekly a few days later in the 2 March 1907 issue:

If tasting Heliconian springs
     He of their waters drank not deep,
If, smiling, he beheld not things
     Revealed to eyes that weep,
If dread Dodona's Oracle
     And Delphi's voice for him were mute,
If grave Minerva in his path
     Dropped never silver flute,— 

Yet beauty wove a magic spell
     For him, and early, at his need,
Upon a bed of asphodel
     He found a tuneful reed,—
The Syrinx-reed Thessalian,
     Of plaintive, far renown,
The universal pipe of Pan,—
     Where the god laid it down.

Right reverently from the ground
     He lifted up the sacred thing,
Accepted it with awe profound,
     With faith unfaltering;
And when its music forth he drew
     Earth half forgot her ancient pain,
For Marsyas himself ne'er blew
     A purer, sweeter strain!

What though there be who self-attired
     In robes of judgment some misuse,
Protest that he was not inspired
     By the authentic Muse,—
Love, granting all his faults to these,
     Forever holds his name apart,
Who moved not senseless stones and trees,
     But the quick human heart.

"The people's poet." Did he lack
     Return? He served in his degree
The people, and they gave him back
     Their immortality!
Time careless grows of costly wit,
     Brave monuments are quickly gone,—
But that which on the heart is writ
     Lives on, and on, and on!

Subsequently published in Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II, with changes to text.

On this day in 1902

Mrs. Coates was among other women who attended "a series of six studies in current events ... at the house of Mrs. Mahlon N. Kline [Isadora Emilie Unger Kline], 266 West Tulpehocken street, Germantown.  Thursday afternoons in Lent at half after 3 o'clock, beginning February 20." [Philadelphia Inquirer 18 February 1902]

THE LAND OF PROMISE, a poem

ALTHOUGH the faiths to which we fearful clung
     Fall from us, or no more have might to save;
     Although the past, recalling gifts it gave,
     O'er lost delights a doleful knell have rung;
Although the present, forth from ashes sprung,
     Postpone from day to day what most we crave,
     And, promising, beguile us to the grave,—
Yet, toward the Future, we are always young!

It smiles upon us in last lingering hours,
     If with less radiance, with a light as fair,
          As tender, pure, as in our childish years:
It is the fairy realm of fadeless flowers;
     Of songs and ever-springing fountains, where
          No heart-aches come, no vain regrets, no tears!

"The Land of Promise" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Cosmopolitan (February 1895), Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

Mrs. Coates may have sent this poem to Walt Whitman in 1888 (albeit under a slightly different title), for in With Walt Whitman in Camden (1888) we read of Whitman's response: "Mrs. Coates has sent him a poem, type-written: The Promised Land. 'The letter that came with it was very hospitable, forth-giving: I liked it: indeed, the letter was a better poem than the poem: a real poem in fact.'" [p. 396]

Other excerpts from the same book mentioning the Coates' are as follows:

I am told [Mrs. Coates] bears me in mind and is of a disposition to look with something of favor on my work—which I might say, quoting one of William's playful quips, 'shows her good sense.' They tell me Mrs. Coates is quite a woman among women—is beautiful, shines with great brightness, and, by those who know her well, is admired and cherished...[93] I don't know Mr. Coates but I know the wife—a beautiful, true woman, I have always believed her. We have had several talks together—or maybe only one talk: I am not clear about that now—but I shall always remember what she said—the effect of her talk, which was mainly about Matthew Arnold, who was her guest in Germantown. Arnold is a man for whom I never seem to be able to get up any stir—with whom I never have had and never could have a thorough-going affinity. But Mrs. Coates gave me the other side of him—the social side, the personal side, the intellectual side—the side of deportment, behavior—the side which I ought perhaps most to hear about and did willingly and gladly hear of from her. For every man has that better thing to be said of him—is entitled to all it may mean, signify, explain...[112] Yes, tell the Coates people—Mrs., Mr. Coates—to come over: I will see them...[156] I saw [Mr. and Mrs. Coates]—was glad to see them: both of them are so good, cordial, sincere—she particularly. It does my old eyes good to look at such a woman...[215]

A Mayflower descendant, and PILGRIM SONG, a poem

Mrs. Coates was the tenth founding member (1896) of the Society of Mayflower Descendants in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (SMDPA), a society which still exists today. She was a ninth generation descendant of Pilgrim John Howland:

John TILLEY (passenger) married Elizabeth CARVER; and had Elizabeth TILLEY, who married John HOWLAND (passenger); and had Desire HOWLAND, who married Capt John GORHAM; and had Lt. Col. John GORHAM, who married Mary OTIS; and had Stephen GORHAM, who married Elizabeth GARDNER; and had Susannah GORHAM, who married Daniel PADDACK; and had Deborah PADDACK, who married George HUSSEY; and had Uriel HUSSEY, who married Phebe FOLGER; and had Mary HUSSEY, who married THOMAS EARLE; and had George Hussey EARLE, Sr., who married Ellen Frances VAN LEER; and had Florence Van Leer EARLE.

Mrs. Coates wrote the following poem for the Society some time prior to 1900:

PILGRIMS of the trackless deep,
     Leaving all, our fathers came,
Life and liberty to keep
     In Jehovah's awful name.
Neither pillared flame nor cloud
     Made the wild, for them, rejoice,
But their hearts, with sorrow bowed,
     In the darkness heard His voice.

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.

In the days that shall succeed,
     Prouder boast no time shall grant
Than to be of them, indeed,
     Children of their Covenant:
Children of the promised day,
     Bound by hope and memory,
Brave, devoted, wise, as they—
     Strong with love's humility.

Published in Mine and Thine (1904) and subsequently in Poems (1916) Volume I as "Pilgrim Song." The poem was set to music as a hymn in 1900, with music by Thomas Whitney Surette. According to the Pennsylvania Mayflower (Winter 2010-2011), "The Pilgrims" was sung by members and guests "at the annual meeting of the SMDPA in Philadelphia" on 16 February 1900.

On Lincoln, and Leaders of Men

"...We shrine our heroes for the future days..."

And one there is, one image, full of rest,
A memory of manhood singly blest,
     The savior of our Nation and her Chief:
Matchless in judgment, love, compassion, power—
          The Man meet for the hour.
     Assailed by ignorance and half-belief,—
Each searching from too near a view
To read the soul of all our souls most true,—
     He went his way, unselfish, minist'ring;
     But in the bud and promise-time of Spring
     He died—and then we knew.

From "Memorial Ode" by Florence Earle Coates.

I do not know whether Mrs. Coates ever met Lincoln, but we are told in an issue of Law Notes (August 1907) that her father, George H. Earle, Sr.—"one of the best known lawyers and citizens of Philadelphia ... was a personal friend of [Lincoln's], and was [at the time of Earle's death] the oldest surviving delegate to the first Republican National Convention that nominated Fremont for the presidency." In the Report of the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Bar Association (1907), it states that Mr. Earle "[asserted] himself as a champion of the slave and also as a municipal reformer. As a boy he had taken part in an anti-slavery demonstration, and he was wounded at the riot attending the burning of Pennsylvania Hall. He defended many slaves captured under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave law, and on more than one occasion obtained the release of his clients. He took the stump and took part in the campaigns which preceded the election of Lincoln and Grant. After the Civil War he turned his attention to municipal affairs ... His manner was simple yet powerful, and when he desired to be, he was deliciously satirical..."  Of such "Leaders of Men", Mrs. Coates writes:

WHEN they are dead, we heap the laurels high
Above them where, indifferent, they lie:
     We join their deeds to unaccustomed praise,
     And crown with garlands of immortal bays
Whom, living, we but thought to crucify.

As mountains seem less glorious viewed too nigh,
So, often, do the great whom we decry
     Gigantic loom to our astonished gaze—
            When they are dead;

For, shamed by largeness, littlenesses die;
And partisan and narrow hates put by,
     We shrine our heroes for the future days;
     And to atone our ignorant delays
With fond and emulous devotion try,—
            When they are dead!

"Leaders of Men" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (October 1909), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II.  It was also the Foreword in The Book of Lincoln (1919), by Mary Wright-Davis (compiler).

George H. Earle, Sr.

Original photo courtesy of

Florence Earle Morrisey

On Lincoln, Mrs. Coates writes the following:

A HERO

HE sang of joy; whate'er he knew of sadness
     He kept for his own heart's peculiar share:
So well he sang, the world imagined gladness
     To be sole tenant there.

For dreams were his, and in the dawn's fair shining,
     His spirit soared beyond the mounting lark;
But from his lips no accent of repining
     Fell when the days grew dark;

And though contending long dread Fate to master,
     He failed at last her enmity to cheat,
He turned with such a smile to face disaster
     That he sublimed defeat.

"A Hero" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (February 1909), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

HIS FACE

THEY tell you Lincoln was ungainly, plain?
          To some he seemed so: true.
Yet in his look was charm to gain
          E'en such as I, who knew
With how confirmed a will he tried
To overthrow a cause for which I would have died.

The sun may shine with naught to shroud
          Its beam yet show less bright
Than when from out eclipsing cloud
          It pours its radiant light;
And Lincoln seen amid the shows of war
Clothed in his sober black, was somehow felt the more

To be a centre and a soul of power,—
          An influence benign
To kindle in a faithless hour
          New trust in the divine.
Grave was his visage, but no cloud could dull
The radiance from within that made it beautiful.

A prisoner, when I saw him first—
          Wounded and sick for home—
His presence soothed my yearning's thirst
          While yet his lips were dumb;
For such compassion as his countenance wore
I had not seen nor felt in human face before.

And when, low-bending o'er his foe,
          He took in his firm hand
My wasted one, I seemed to know
          We two were of one Land;
And as my cheek flushed warm with young surprise,
God's pity looked on me from Lincoln's sorrowing eyes.

His prisoner I was from then—
          Love makes surrender sure—
And though I saw him not again,
          Some memories endure,
And I am glad my untaught worship knew
His the divinest face I ever looked into!

"His Face" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (February 1911), The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

President of the Browning Society of Philadelphia

Formed in 1887 by the New Century Club, the Browning Society of Philadelphia was "devoted to the study of pure literature, and not exclusively to the work of Robert Browning." It would grow to become "the largest literary organization in the world, having a membership of more than one thousand." (The Literary World, 9 Jan 1897)

Election invitation, 1895

Mrs. Coates was elected president of the Society from 1895 to 1903, and again from 1907 to 1908. Preceding Mrs. Coates' election in 1895, Miss Helen Bell was acting president of the Society (first elected in 1891). Upon the death of Miss Bell on 11 February 1895, Mrs. Coates would pen the following (as rendered in Woman's Progress, April 1895):

Death wished to borrow something of thy grace;
     And now that thou art lying 'neath the snow,
The grave that holds thee seems a favored place,
     Where one might willing go.
But life is not so rich in things divine,
That it would part with such a soul as thine!

A voice of comfort breathes from sorrowing Earth
     If winter is the nursery of flowers,
If purity and loveliness have worth
     Beyond this world of ours,
If there is pity for the tears we shed,
If any truly live—thou art not dead!

Published as "Helen Bell. February 11, 1895" in Woman's Progress (April 1895) and as "Winter the Nursery for Spring Flowers" in Meehan's Monthly (January 1896).

Helen Bell

A dedicatory piece on Helen Bell can be found in the April 1895 issue of Jane Campbell's Woman's Progress.

The Society was disbanded around 1922, with meetings ending in 1925.

WINTER-SONG, a poem

From the scrapbook of Frances Earle Johnson (sister of Mrs. Coates). Artwork is signed, "Jerry."

Original scan courtesy of Florence Earle Morrisey

TO him who doth remember,
     June evermore is near:
He breathes her rose amid the snows,
     And still he seems to hear
The lark from wintry fields arise
Into the blue of summer skies.

Both April and December
     Time doth to mortals bring,
But in the seed, for future need,
     Eternal waits the Spring;
And there be stars that never set,
For him who knows not to forget.

"Winter-Song" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume II.