Coates Kinney

The voice of a woman forever
Runs sobbing after my soul;
Night or day, day or night, I can never
Escape its mournful control;…

Ere the Muses transatlantic,
Pale of face, and blue of eye,
Found the wilderness romantic
’Neath the occidental sky,…

My thought is a soaring eagle,
My word a serpent on the ground:
The serpent crawls,
The eagle falls…

The sunset blushes of the occident
Glow faint and fainter, and as Twilight waves
Her wizard wand athwart the firmament,
The quick stars spring from their cerulean graves…

You ask, in scorn, if life is worth the living.
But tell me, then, what is it you call life?
Is it the joy of getting or of giving?
Is it repose of thought or thrill of strife?Who toils from rising of the sun to setting,…

When the humid shadows hover
Over all the starry spheres,
And the melancholy darkness
Gently weeps in rainy tears,…

O, to the Lord be glory! halleluiah to the Lord!
He hath stricken off our shackles and hath given us the sword
To do the righteous judgment of his everlasting Word,
As we go marching on.…