"Frost Tonight" / Edith M. Thomas

       
"Frost Tonight"

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.

---
Edith M. Thomas
from The Flower from the Ashes, and other verse, 1915

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Edith M. Thomas biography