151. "Frost To-Night" by Edith M. Thomas. Rittenhouse, Jessie B., ed. 1917. The Little Book of Modern Verse

Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Little Book of Modern Verse. 1917.

151. “Frost To-Night”

By Edith M. Thomas


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 the 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.