| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 311. Edith |
| | | By William Ellery Channing |
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| EDITH, the silent stars are coldly gleaming, | |
| The night wind moans, the leafless trees are still. | |
| Edith, there is a life beyond this seeming, | |
| So sleeps the ice-clad lake beneath thy hill. | |
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| So silent beats the pulse of thy pure heart, | 5 |
| So shines the thought of thy unquestioned eyes. | |
| O life! why wert thou helpless in thy art? | |
| O loveliness! why seem’st thou but surprise? | |
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| Edith, the streamlets laugh to leap again; | |
| There is a spring to which life’s pulses fly; | 10 |
| And hopes that are not all the sport of pain, | |
| Like lustres in the veil of that gray eye. | |
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| They say the thankless stars have answering vision, | |
| That courage sings from out the frost-bound ways; | |
| Edith, I grant that olden time’s decision,— | 15 |
| Thy beauty paints with gold the icy rays. | |
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| As in the summer’s heat her promise lies, | |
| As in the autumn’s seed his vintage hides, | |
| Thus might I shape my moral from those eyes, | |
| Glass of thy soul, where innocence abides. | 20 |
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| Edith, thy nature breathes of answered praying; | |
| If thou dost live, then not my grief is vain; | |
| Beyond the nerves of woe, beyond delaying, | |
| Thy sweetness stills to rest the winter’s pain. | |
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