| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 720. The Stars |
| | | By Mary Mapes Dodge |
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| THEY wait all day unseen by us, unfelt; | |
| Patient they bide behind the day’s full glare; | |
| And we, who watched the dawn when they were there, | |
| Thought we had seen them in the daylight melt, | |
| While the slow sun upon the earth-line knelt. | 5 |
| Because the teeming sky seemed void and bare, | |
| When we explored it through the dazzled air, | |
| We had no thought that there all day they dwelt. | |
| Yet were they over us, alive and true, | |
| In the vast shades far up above the blue,— | 10 |
| The brooding shades beyond our daylight ken,— | |
| Serene and patient in their conscious light, | |
| Ready to sparkle for our joy again,— | |
| The eternal jewels of the short-lived night. | |
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