Courage

Hast thou been driven to the wall?

Sound thou again thy battle call.

Thou knowest not what store of strength

Determination yields at length;

When all the outer forces fail

Sheer inner courage may prevail.

-       Helena Coleman[1]

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[1] Helena Jane Coleman (1860-1953) was a music teacher, poet and writer. She was born in Newcastle, near the Bay of Quinte, Ontario, the daughter of Francis Coleman and Emmeline Maria Adams. She was educated at Ontario Ladies’ College, Whitby, where she received the Gold Medal in Music, and became the Head of its Music Department (1880-1892). She took a one-year leave of absence to pursue post-graduate studies in music in Berlin, Germany.

Coleman contributed poems to many Canadian and American journals. She was a member of the Authors’ Society, the Canadian Authors’ Association, the Rose Society, and the University Women’s Club in Toronto. She used over a dozen pseudonyms, not publishing under her own name until the release of Songs and Sonnets in 1906. Her short stories and articles continued to appear under pseudonyms long afterwards. Helena resided with her brother, A.P. Coleman, in Toronto and spent summer holidays at their cottage in the Thousand Islands (“Pinehurst”). She died, unmarried, in Toronto.  (Source: Victoria University Library Special Collections – library.vicu.utoronto.ca)