Poem by Mrs. F. W. Doane - Third Coe Family Reunion
You may sing of fair Cuba, the Philippine isles,
Where they dress in the fashion of Eve,
Where the Spanish grander no longer shall go,
To his miserly fortune retrieve
Of these you may sing and of more if you will,
Till the mountain re-echo your day,
But we’ll sing of old Durham, that famous old town,
Where the Coe family gathers today.
We’ll sing of her meadows, her rich wooded hills,
Her Acres of gay tasseled corn,
Of the cattle that graze in her blossoming dells,
Mid clover that’s wet with morn:
Of her sons tall and stalwart that dwell here at home
And delve in the Durham soil,
Content with the measure that Providence metes,
Content with their labor and toil
Who scorn all the wealth and the pomp of the world
The tinsel of fashion and pride,
Who eat their own bacon beneath their own vine
And drink their own cider beside.
Their laughter is bright as the song of the birds,
That sing when the weather is fair,
With mirth and their melody make the blood young
And smooth out the wrinkles of care;
But they sing not alone in the fullness of June,
When the sunlight is bright over all,
But when the clouds gather and heavens are dark
Their songs are the sweetest of all.
We gather again in our old native town,
And sit neath our aniestral tree,
There are brothers and cousins and uncles and aunts,
And kindred of every degree,
There are heads that are wavy, and cheeks that are down,
And bonny fair girls in their teens
And children we value more highly than gold,
Who have met mid these pastoral scenes.
We gather again round the family board,
We chatter and gossip and cheer,
Of fashion, of crops, of the prospect of rain
We discuss the events of the year;
We talk of the war in the far away South,
Of our victories over the sea,
Of the problems of state of our nation to solve,
When Cuba from Spain shall be free.
The years that is gone is a tale that is told,
Its pleasures and sorrows are o’er,
Yet memory lingers amid the old scenes,
And we close with reluctance the door
Upon the dim corridored vaults of the past,
Where memory ever must dwell,
Mid the bitter and sweet and the shadow and high
There bound with a magical spell.
The rose may be plucked in the fullness of bloom,
It may linger till faded in hue,
And God in His Providence gathers the bud,
That glistens with sunlight and dew;
So think not the rose bud will wither away
In the breath of the wintry cold,
In a warmer and sunnier clime it will blow
And its gay colored petals unfold.
Gray hairs said the poet in Judah of old,
Are a crown of glory to wear,
And blessed is he who in fullness of life
Shall the jewel of purity share,
A tribute we’d pay in this gay festive hour.
To a life that with sunlight is blessed,
Whose lingering beams send a halo of light
From the bright tinted clouds in the west.
The sunset that lingers far over the hills
It’s the breath of an evening breeze,
So rich in their splendor the tints of the sky,
Its sunrise over the seas,
Its sunset and ev’en sunrise and morn,
For morning and evening are one,
For to slumber on earth is to waken in Heaven
With the toil of our pilgrimage done.
When Winter’s cold gauntlet is laid on the streams
And the north winds lustily blow,
The flowers are warm in their beds on the hills
Neath a blanket of feathery snow;
So her heart neath the winter of eighty seven years,
Is as warm as the sunlight of May,
And it feels not the cold of the fleet waning year
But is bright as an April day.