On Alexander III of Russia

TO THE TSAR (1890)

O THOU into whose human hand is given
     A godlike might! who, for thy earthly hour,
Above reproof, self-counseled and self-shriven,
     Wieldest o'er regions vast despotic power!
               Mortal, who by a breath,
     A look, a hasty word, as soon forgot,
Commandest energies of life and death!—
Midst terrors dread, that darkly multiply,
     Wilt thou thy vision blind, and listen not
Whilst unto Heaven ascends thy people's cry?

In vain, in vain!  The injuries they speak
     Down unto final depths their souls have stirr'd:
The aged plead through them, the childish-weak,
     The mad, the dying,—and they shall be heard!
               Thou wilt not hear them; but,
     Though Heaven were hedged about with walls of stone,
And though with brazen gates forever shut,
And sentried 'gainst petitions of despair,
     'T were closely guarded as thy fearful throne,
That cry of helpless wrong should enter there!

O Majesty!  'T is great to be a king,
     But greater is it yet to be a man!
The exile by far Lena perishing,
     The captive in Kara who bears thy ban,
               Ransomed at length and free,
     Shall rise from torments that make heroes strong;
Shall rise, as equal souls, to question thee;
And for defense there nothing shall endure
     Of all which to thy lofty state belong,
Save that thou hast of human, brave, and pure!

Cæsar, thou still art man, and serv'st a King
     Who wields a power more terrible than thine!
Slow, slow to anger, and long-suffering,
     He hears his children cry, and makes no sign:
               He hears them cry, but, oh!
     Imagine not his tardy judgments sleep,
Or that their agonies He doth not know
Who, hidden, waste where tyrants may not see!
     Eternal watch He over them doth keep,—
Eternal watch,—and Russia shall be free!

"To the Tsar (1890)" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (January 1890) and Poems (1898).

Funeral of Alexander III

ALEXANDER III

(LIVADIA, NOVEMBER 1, 1894)

THE world in mourning for a Russian Tsar!
     A despot of the nineteenth century
     Mourned by the nations that have made men free!
     Ye captives of his rule! where'er ye be,
Whether in dungeons or in mines afar—
Wretches who mourn, yet mourn not for the Tsar,—
     Forgive the tears that seem a wrong to grief
     Barren of comfort and without relief;
The Tsar was Russia's martyr—as ye are!

He asked for peace, and she ordained him strife.
     A Slav of simple heart, disliking show,
     She bade him every lowly hope forego;
     And placing on his brow her crown of woe,
Gave him a sovereignty with perils rife,
And 'neath his sceptre hid the assassin's knife.
     So, masked as Fear, she broke his nerves of steel
     Upon the circle of her racking wheel,
And set a horror at his door of life!

Humanity but sorrows for her own;
     The Autocrat she mourns not, but the man,
     Who, loving Russia, lived beneath her ban,
     Powerless to soften fate or change the plan
That called him all unwilling to a throne,
Hereditary evils to atone.
     She mourns not Cæsar, but the pathos old
     Of a quick conscience driven to uphold
A dynasty the world had long outgrown.

Omitted from the 1916 version (rendered above), the 1898 rendering of this poem includes the following last stanza:

Woe to the Tsar!—Livadia's cannon boom,
     Proclaiming that the Tsar from woe is free!
     Peace to the Tsar! but, Russia, woe to thee!
     Still he who rules thee shall thy victim be,
Tortured by griefs that shall his heart consume,
Till he and thou, risen as from the tomb,
     Shall see the light on Liberty's calm face,
     Shall know that tyranny must yield its place
To the great spirit that hath breathed its doom!

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

SIBERIA, a poem

THE night-wind drives across the leaden skies,
     And fans the brooding earth with icy wings;
     Against the coast loud-booming billows flings,
And soughs through forest-deeps with moaning sighs.
Above the gorge, where snow, deep-fallen lies,
     A softness lending e'en to savage things—
     Above the gelid source of mountain springs,
A solitary eagle, circling, flies.

O pathless woods, O isolating sea,
     O steppes interminable, hopeless, cold,
O grievous distances, imagine ye,
     Imprisoned here, the human soul to hold?
Free, in a dungeon,—as yon falcon free,—
     It soars beyond your ken its loved ones to enfold!

"Siberia" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (March 1889), Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

THE CHRIST OF THE ANDES, a poem

FAR, far the mountain-peak from me
Where lone he stands, with look caressing;
     Yet from the valley, wistfully
     I lift my dreaming eyes, and see
His hand stretched forth in blessing.

     Never bird sings nor blossom blows
Upon that summit chill and breathless
     Where throned he waits amid the snows;
     But from his presence wide outflows
Love that is warm and deathless!

     O Symbol of the great release
From war and strife!—unfailing fountain
     To which we turn for joy's increase,
     Fain would we climb to heights of Peace—
Thy peace upon the mountain!

"The Christ of the Andes" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

BUFFALO, a poem

McKinley assassination
Wikimedia Commons

On 6 September 1901, President William McKinley was shot and fatally wounded by an anarchist in Buffalo, New York.

SEPTEMBER 6, 1901

 A TRANSIENT city, marvelously fair,—
     Humane, harmonious, yet nobly free,—
     She built for pure delight and memory.
At her command, by lake and garden rare,
Pylon and tower majestic rose in air,
     And sculptured forms of grace and symmetry.
     Then came a thought of God, and, reverently,—
"Let there be Light!" she said; and Light was there.

O miracle of splendor! Who could know
     That Crime, insensate, egoist and blind,
          Destructive, causeless, caring but to smite,
     Would in its dull Cimmerian gropings find
A sudden way to fill those courts with woe,
     And swallow up that radiance in night?

"Buffalo" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Independent (10 October 1901), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

McKINLEY

Peace!—mourn no more the martyr's fate!
Death came—though by the hand of hate,
His faithful life to vindicate,
     His name to set apart.
No more assailed, misunderstood,
He sleeps where love his grave hath strewed,
Safe sentinelled by gratitude,—
     The memory of the heart.

"McKinley" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Era (October 1901).

INDIAN-PIPE, a poem

IN the heart of the forest arising,
     Slim, ghostly, and fair,
Ethereal offspring of moisture,
     Of earth and of air;
With slender stems anchored together
     Where first they uncurl,
Each tipped with its exquisite lily
     Of mother-of-pearl;
Mid the pine-needles, closely enwoven
     Its roots to embale,—
The Indian-pipe of the woodland,
     Thrice lovely and frail!

Is this but an earth-springing fungus—
     This darling of Fate
Which out of the mouldering darkness
     Such light can create?
Or is it the spirit of Beauty,
     Here drawn by love's lure
To give to the forest a something
     Unearthy and pure:
To crystallize dewdrop and balsam
     And dryad-lisped words
And starbeam and moonrise and rapture
     And song of wild birds?

"Indian-Pipe" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (March 1909), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

JEWEL-WEED, a poem

THOU lonely, dew-wet mountain road,
     Traversed by toiling feet each day,
What rare enchantment maketh thee
     Appear so gay?

Thy sentinels, on either hand
     Rise tamarack, birch, and balsam-fir,
O'er the familiar shrubs that greet
     The wayfarer;

But here's a magic cometh new—
     A joy to gladden thee, indeed:
This passionate out-flowering of
     The jewel-weed,

That now, when days are growing drear,
     As Summer dreams that she is old,
Hangs out a myriad pleasure-bells
     Of mottled gold!

Thine only, these, thou lonely road!
     Though hands that take, and naught restore,
Rob thee of other treasured things,
     Thine these are, for

A fairy, cradled in each bloom,
     To all who pass the charmèd spot
Whispers in warning: "Friend, admire,—
     But touch me not!

"Leave me to blossom where I sprung,
     A joy untarnished shall I seem;
Pluck me, and you dispel the charm
     And blur the dream!"

"Jewel-Weed" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Bellman (16 May 1914) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

GIVE ME NOT LOVE, a poem

GIVE me not love that would enthrall
     A spirit panting to be free;
But give me love which more than all
     Would find it sweet to soar with me!
The bird that close to earth doth cling,
May, darkling, be content to sing,
But full the sunlight shines afar—
And there be heights where eagles are.

Give me not love which hour by hour,
     Like to the rose, doth pale its hue;
But love still constant as the flower
     That opens to each morn anew;
Not love which, shadowed by the tomb,
A little space doth languid bloom,
But love that draws its deeper breath
From altitudes that know not death.

"Give Me Not Love" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Atlantic Monthly (June 1903), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

DEATH, a poem

I AM the key that parts the gates of Fame;
I am the cloak that covers cowering Shame;
I am the final goal of every race;
I am the storm-tossed spirit's resting-place:

The messenger of sure and swift relief,
Welcomed with wailings and reproachful grief;
The friend of those that have no friend but me,
I break all chains, and set all captives free.

I am the cloud that, when Earth's day is done,
An instant veils an unextinguished sun;
I am the brooding hush that follows strife,
The waking from a dream that Man calls—Life!

"Death" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (August 1888), Poems (1898) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

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

HEIMWEH, a poem

THE birds returning seem so glad
     As from the South they come,
They teach my heart, forlorn and sad,
     How distant is my home:
O'er land and sea wild roaming free,
     They little understand—
Glad nomads—that there is for me
     One home—one only Land!

And yonder dancing rivulet
     That merrily on doth go,
Humming a tune I 'd fain forget,
     Adds something to my woe:
Ah, had it but a thought for me
     'T would either now be dumb,
Or it would croon a melody
     Less dear to me at home!

Fond memories of days of yore!—
     My heart so hungereth,
The smell of upland clover or
     The dew-wet violet's breath
Might quickly fill it with delight;
     But exiled here I roam,
And dread, beyond all else, to-night,
     The scents that speak of home!

"Heimweh" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Bazar (September 1911) and The Unconquered Air (1912).

CENDRILLON, a poem

        I  AM a dream,
        A fairy gleam
     Of rose and amethyst;
A creature of the moonlight and the mist,
Woven of stars that, meeting, silent kissed.
     Think of me as a dream!

I am a note of melody that woke
Within your breast, and to your longing spoke:
          A lonely strain
          Of ecstasy and pain;
     A hope that, glimpsed, must fade;
     A form, illusion made,
That, vanishing, shall come no more again!

     Regret me not that I
     Must like to music die!
        The virgin rose,
In blossoming, hastes to its fragrant close,
And whatsoe'er this magic hour I seem,
I am enchantment, only, and a dream,—
     Love always is a dream!

"Cendrillon" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (August 1912), The Unconquered Air (1912) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

WHO WALKS THE WORLD WITH SOUL AWAKE, a poem

The Good Samaritan (pre-1904)
by George Frederic Watts

WHO walks the world with soul awake
     Finds beauty everywhere;
Though labor be his portion,
     Though sorrow be his share,
He looks beyond obscuring clouds,
     Sure that the light is there!

And if, the ills of mortal life
     Grown heavier to bear,
Doubt come with its perplexities
     And whisper of despair,
He turns with love to suffering men—
     And, lo! God, too, is there.

"Who Walks the World with Soul Awake" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Outlook (2 August 1913) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

"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.

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.

BEREFT, a poem

DEATH took away from me my heart's desire,—
     Full suddenly, without a word of warning;
Froze with benumbing touch her body's fire,
     And darkened her young morning.

Death hid her then where she is safe, men say,—
     Imprisoned in a deep-digged grave and hollow,
Where grief and pain may never find a way,
     Nor any torment follow.

Safe!—and because of fear, they deem 't was best
     For her, perchance,—this thing which they call dying,
But cold she could not be against my breast
     As there where she is lying!

Sometimes I dream, with sudden, wild delight,
     That she escapes the cruel bonds that bind her,
And fond I seek through all the throbbing night,
     But never, never find her!

Sometimes—But have the dead then no regrets?—
     Ah, me! I think, though she hath so bereft me,
My loved one cannot be where she forgets
     How lonely she hath left me!

"Bereft" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Reader (June 1907), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume I.

IN THE OFFING, a poem

THE Ship of the Spring in the offing at last!
     Oh, rude blew the hindering gales,
But perfumes entrancing, the danger o'erpast,
     Are wafted afar, from her sails!

The bearer of treasure more fragrant than myrrh—
     More precious than jewels of Inde,
The stars in their courses keep watch over her,
     The gods for her temper the wind.

She comes as a maid whom life's vision elates,
     Out-spreading her draperies white;
She comes as a bride whom a lover awaits
     With proud and impatient delight.

A queen, as she glides to the goal of her dreams
     With movement majestic and slow,
So still is her beauty, half-conscious she seems,—
     But the heart in her breast is aglow;

For she hears the far murmur of myriad things
     That shall at her coming have birth.
O sails in the offing! ye are as the wings
     Of angels that bring her to Earth!

"In the Offing" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Minaret (May 1917).

BROOK SONG: TO THE SPRING, a poem

O BEAUTY! vision of forgotten gladness!
     Fulfillment of a dream that ne'er betrays!
O miracle of hope, and balm of sadness!
     Creative ecstasy and fount of praise!

     ·     ·     ·     ·     ·     ·     ·     ·     ·

I lay upon the ground and gave no token,
     I hid my face mid sodden leaves and sere,
My languid pulses chill, my spirit broken,—
     I knew not, O divine one! you were near;

For snows and frosts of winter, new-departed,
     Still held my will in thrall and weighed me down;
And I forgot—forlorn and heavy-hearted—
     Your promise, goddess of the violet crown!

But soft as music in remembrance sighing,
     You fanned me with your wooing breath, and I
Who shed no tears when lone I seemed and dying
     Wept at your touch, and knew I should not die.

Now by my banks are tender blossoms blowing:
     In fragrant loveliness they smile on me,—
But I must hasten to the river, knowing
     The river will lead onward to the sea.

High over me the budding branches quiver
     With songs that swell in happy harmony;
But sweeter is the murmur of the river,—
     The river that leads onward to the sea!

"Brook Song: To the Spring" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Outlook (6 May 1899), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume I.