Jessie B. Rittenhouse, ed. (1869–1948). The Little Book of Modern Verse. 1917.
Edith M. Thomas
Frost To-Night
A
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.”
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.
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.
I heed a Voice in the shrinking hours:
“Frost to-night—so clear and dead-still” …
Half sad, half proud, my arms I fill.