McKinley Assassination Ink: A Documentary History of William McKinley's Assassination

Publication information

Source: Poems of American History
Source type: book
Document type: poem
Document title: “Buffalo”
Author(s): Coates, Florence Earle
Editor(s): Stevenson, Burton Egbert
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Place of publication: Boston, Massachusetts
Year of publication: 1908
Pagination: 649

Citation

Coates, Florence Earle. “Buffalo.” Poems of American History. Ed. Burton Egbert Stevenson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1908: p. 649.

Transcription

full text

Keywords

Buffalo, NY (poetry); Pan-American Exposition (poetry).

Named persons

none.

Notes

From title page: Collected and Edited by Burton Egbert Stevenson.

Document

Buffalo

[1901]

A TRANSIENT city, marvellously 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?

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