“Frost To-Night”

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,

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,

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” …

Half sad, half proud, my arms I fill.