16. Frost To-night. Edith M. Thomas. Modern American Poetry

Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.

Edith M. Thomas. 1854–

16. "Frost To-night"

APPLE-GREEN west and an orange bar;
And the crystal eye of a lone, one star...
And, "Child, take the shears and cut what you will,
Frost to-night—so clear and dead-still."

Then I sally forth, half sad, half proud,	5
And I come to the velvet, imperial crowd,
The wine-red, the gold, the crimson, the pied,—
The dahlias that reign by the garden-side.

The dahlias I might not touch till to-night!
A gleam of shears in the fading light,	10
And I gathered them all,—the splendid throng,
And in one great sheaf I bore them along.
. . . . . In my garden of Life with its all late flowers
I heed a Voice in the shrinking hours:
"Frost to-night—so clear and dead-still"...	15
Half sad, half proud, my arms I fill.