Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Winter Starlight

By Frank Dempster Sherman (1860–1916)

THE AIR is keen, the sky is clear,

The winds have gone in whispers down;

And, gleaming in the atmosphere,

A jewel, lies the lighted town.

The winter’s mantle stretches white

Upon the roofs and streets below;

All hushed, the noises of the night,

Against the bosom of the snow.

The Moon from her blue dwelling-place

Smiles over all, so pale, so fair,

It seems the Earth’s wan, winter face

Reflected in a mirror there.

Far off the lonely trees uplift

Their naked branches like the spars

Of some deserted ship adrift

Under a canopy of stars.

It is the darkened world that rides

The sea of space, forever drawn

By secret winds and mighty tides

Unto the harbor of the Dawn.