Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Mary MapesDodge

720 The Stars

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.

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,—

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.