Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/To Helen Keller

For other versions of this work, see To Helen Keller.
770902Poems, Volume I — To Helen KellerFlorence Earle Coates

TO HELEN KELLER

LIFE has its limitations manifold:
All life; not only that which throbs in thee,
And strains its fetters, eager to be free.
The faultless eye may not thy vision hold—
Maiden, whose brow with thought is aureoled—
And they who hear may lack the ministry,
The august influence, of Silence, she
Who brooded o'er the void in ages old.


Prisoner of the dark inaudible,
Light, which the night itself could not eclipse,
Thou shinest forth Man's being to reveal.
We learn with awe from thine apocalypse,
That nothing can the human spirit quell,
And know him lord of all things, who can feel!