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HELEN KELLER WITH A ROSE, and other poems Published in the July 1905 issue of The Century Magazine, "Helen Keller with a Rose" was written after Mrs. Coates viewed the above image published in the January 1905 issue of the same magazine.

OTHERS may see thee; I behold thee not;
Yet most I think thee, beauteous blossom, mine:
For I, who walk in shade, like Proserpine—
Things once too briefly looked on, long forgot—
Seem by some tender miracle divine,
When breathing thee, apart,
To hold the rapturous summer warm within my heart.

We understand each other, thou and I!
Thy velvet petals laid against my cheek,
Thou feelest all the voiceless things I speak,
And to my yearning makest mute reply:
Yet a more special good of thee I seek,
For God who made—oh, kind!—
Beauty for one and all, gave fragrance for the blind!

"Helen Keller with a Rose" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in The Century Magazine (July 1905) and Lyrics of Life (1909).



AS mute against the gate of life you sit,
Longing to open it,
Full oft you must behold, in thought, a maid
With banner white, whose lilies do not fade,
And armor glory lit.

Across the years, darkling, you still must see,
In the hush of memory,
Her whom no wrong of Fate could make afraid—
Of all the maidens of the world, The Maid!—
In her brave purity.

For she, like you, was singly set apart,
O high and lonely heart!—
And hearkened Voices, silent save to her,
And looked on visions she might not transfer
By any loving art,—

Knew the dread chill of isolation, when
Life darkened to her ken;
Yet could not know, as round her closed the night,
How radiant and far would shine her light,—
A miracle to men!

"Against the Gate of Life" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine (December 1910) and The Unconquered Air (1912).
Posted by Sonja N. Bohm at 5:00 AM