“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 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.