Florence Van Leer Nicholson Coates (née Earle; July 1, 1850 – April 6, 1927) was an American poet, and women's rights advocate whose prolific output was published in many literary magazines, some of it set to music.

She attended school in New England under the instruction of abolitionist and teacher Theodore Dwight Weld, and would further her education abroad at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Paris (Rue de Varenne),[5] and by studying music in Brussels under noted instructors of the day.

[7] The tour (which lasted from October 1883 to March 1884) brought Arnold to Philadelphia in December 1883, where he lectured at Association Hall on the topics of the "Doctrine of the Remnant" and on "Emerson".

[8] His second visit and tour of America took place in 1886, and brought him to Philadelphia in early June where he was again hosted by the Coates and spoke on the topic of "Foreign Education" at the University of Pennsylvania chapel.

Rarely did Coates write or publish prose work, but in April 1894 and again in December 1909, she contributed personal reminiscences of her mentor to The Century and Lippincott's magazines respectively.

In one letter dated March 12, 1905, Coates submitted to Mr. Gilder a poem she wrote after being inspired by a photograph of Helen Keller holding a rose which was published in The Century the previous January.

It was there that they entertained, rested and escaped the humidity of Philadelphia summers, welcoming friends such as Otis Skinner, Violet Oakley, Henry Mills Alden, and Agnes Repplier.

There's a lake upon the mountains...—FEC In the March 1913 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, noted anthologist and poet, William Stanley Braithwaite (1878–1962), gives a detailed nine-page review of Coates's poetry, relating how "she draws from the Olympian world figures that typify some motive or desire in human conduct, and in the modern world the praise of men and women, heroic in attainment or sacrifice; or laments events that effect social and ethical progress, showing how beneficently she has brought her art, without modifying in the least its abstract function as a creator of beauty and pleasure, into the service of profound and vital problems".

Coates also penned several other works of fugitive (i.e. uncollected) verse, much of which is patriotic and war-related, describing the selfless sacrifices made by soldiers and citizens alike for the cause of freedom and liberty.