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
Edith
By William Ellery Channing (18181901)E
The night wind moans, the leafless trees are still.
Edith, there is a life beyond this seeming,
So sleeps the ice-clad lake beneath thy hill.
So shines the thought of thy unquestioned eyes.
O life! why wert thou helpless in thy art?
O loveliness! why seem’st thou but surprise?
There is a spring to which life’s pulses fly;
And hopes that are not all the sport of pain,
Like lustres in the veil of that gray eye.
That courage sings from out the frost-bound ways;
Edith, I grant that olden time’s decision—
Thy beauty paints with gold the icy rays.
As in the autumn’s seed his vintage hides,
Thus might I shape my moral from those eyes,
Glass of thy soul, where innocence abides.
If thou dost live, then not my grief is vain;
Beyond the nerves of woe, beyond delaying,
Thy sweetness stills to rest the winter’s pain.