MOTHER

Florence Earle Coates' mother descended from a family long members of the Society of Friends.

Ellen Frances Van Leer Earle (1830-1892)
Original photo courtesy of Florence Earle Morrisey

MOTHER

AT twilight here I sit alone,
     Yet not alone; for thoughts of thee,—
Pale images of pleasure flown,—
     Like homing birds, once more return to me.

Again the shining chestnut braids
     Are soft enwreathed about thy brow,
And light—a light that never fades—
     Beams from thine eyes upon me even now,

As, all undimmed by death and night,
     Remembrance out of distance brings
Thy youthful loveliness, alight
     With ardent hope and high imaginings.

Ah, mortal dreams, how fair, how fleet!
     Thy yearnings scant fulfilment found;
Dark Lethe long hath laved thy feet
     And on thy slumber breaks no troubling sound;

Yet distance parts thee not from me,
     For beauty—or of twilight or of morn—
Binds me, still closer binds, to thee,
     Whose heart sang to my heart ere I was born.

"Mother" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (August 1908), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

MOTHER-LOVE

THINK not of love as of a debt—
     Due or in May or in December!
Nay, rather, for a time, forget.
     Life always helps us to remember!

A child whom harmless toys beguile
     To loiter for a little while,
Put heart into your play, and then,
     When you are tired—come home again!

Fair, yet how fragile, pleasure's rose!—
     How vain the toil to make it stronger!
It blooms—it withers,—but love knows
     A sweeter blossom that lives longer!

"Mother-Love" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Cosmopolitan (December 1909), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

THE ALL-MOTHER

IN the arid and desolate places of life
     She opens fresh fountains of feeling;
She comforts the spirit o'erwearied with strife;
     For the hurt of the heart she has healing.

She looks on our sorrows with calm that is kind,
     (What recks she of failure or illness?)
And gives, with a smile, to the care-burdened mind
     The relief of her beauty and stillness.

She sings mid the tempest, she wings the storm's flight,
     (There's nothing can life from Life sever!)
To guide the lost wanderer safe through the night,
     She keeps a lamp burning forever.

"The All-Mother" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (March 1914) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

Original photo courtesy of Florence Earle Morrisey

Keywords: Mother's Day

PHILISTIA, a poem

SHE waits for man, and leads him artfully—
     In seeming freedom that beguiles his will—
     Unto the great wheels grinding in her mill;
And with a voice of suasive melody,
Entreats him: "Lo! all gifts I proffer thee—
     All joys that adolescent hopes fulfill,
     All riches that the old may covet still—
So thou wilt bow thee down and worship me!"

But list'ning her, the spirit that would live
     Must hear, from far, a nobler message sent:
          Distrustful most where most she seeks to please,
          Unsoftened by her luxury and ease,
     Must hope through higher things to find content,—
Toiling for triumphs which she cannot give!

"Philistia" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (May 1900) and Mine and Thine (1904).

HONOR, a poem

DIVINE abstraction, shadowy image, dream
     More vital than substantial shapes made strong
     By all the tireless energies of wrong,—
Who should deny thy being would blaspheme
The power that made thy loveliness supreme,
     Lending thee accents of auroral song
     To comfort those who unto thee belong,
Though they go down to dark Cocytus' stream.

Patient as Time art thou, eternal one!
     Yet who may change thy judgments—or destroy?
The conqueror whom wily Egypt won
Found with life's honeyed draught a bitter blent;
     And Hector, fallen by the walls of Troy,
Looked up, and saw thy face, and was content.

"Honor" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Smart Set (May 1908), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

THE CHILD AND THE HEART BEREFT, a poem

MY garden, long time desolate,
     Were still of pleasure reft and bare
But for one single, lonely bloom
     That would insist on flowering there.

A fragile thing, in that chill place
     It grew where other joys were not,
Waxing a lovelier hope each day,—
     Albeit half tended, half forgot,—

Until with wild, resistless charm
     That sorrow's very self doth cheat,
It maketh of my desert drear
     A sunlit garden, fresh and sweet.

"The Child and the Heart Bereft" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Poems (1916) Volume II.

AMOR CREATOR, a poem

LOVE is enough: were all we fondly cherish
     To pass as visions melt at dawn of day,
Were bud and blossom, fruit and leaf, to perish,
     Love could rebuild them in his perfect way;
For he who makes the tides to ebb and flow,
Each secret of creation well doth know.

His warmth illumes the glow-worm's fickle spark,
     And beams in Aldebaran's steadfast fire:
With him there is no winter and no dark;
     The font, the burning font, of pure desire,
All forms of beauty unto him belong,—
The rose, the avalanche, the wild bird's song.

On Latmos' height pale Dian dreams about him,
     His voice low echoes in the ocean shell,
The bee could fill no honey-cup without him,
     The violet no fragrant secret tell:
Remote yet near, changeful yet still the same,
Love is creation's breath and vital flame!

"Amor Creator" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Harper's Monthly Magazine (May 1907), Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

TO POVERTY, a poem

PALE  priestess of a fane discredited,
     Whose votaries to-day are few or none;
     Goddess austere, whose touch the vulgar shun,
As they would shrink from a Procrustes bed,
Hieing to temples where the feast is spread,
     And life laughs loudly, and the smooth wines run;
     Wise mother!—least desired 'neath the sun,
At thy chill breasts the noblest have been fed.

Great are thy counsels for the brave and strong;
     Yet do we fear thy brooding mystery,
The griefs, the hardships, which about thee throng,
     The scanty garners where thy harvests be;
But seeing what unto the rich belong,
     We know our debt, O Poverty, to thee!

"To Poverty" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Atlantic Monthly (May 1902), Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume II.

"The Tragic Muse" (1912) by Violet Oakley

Violet Oakley was awarded the Medal of Honor in the painting category at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 for this portrait of Mrs. Coates as "The Tragic Muse."

Mrs. Edward H. Coates as "The Tragic Muse" (1912)
Image courtesy of and copyright © by pafa.org

Violet Oakley (American 1874-1961) 
Tragic Muse (Mrs. Edward H. Coates, 1850-1927) 
Oil on canvas, 29 15/16 x 24 15/16 in. (76.0 x 63.3 cm.) 
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA 
Gift of Mrs. Edward H. Coates (The Edward H. Coates Memorial Collection), 1923.9.4