Apple-green west and an orange bar, <br />And the crystal eye of a lone, one star . . . <br />And, "Child, take the shears and cut what you will, <br />Frost to-night -- so clear and dead-still." <br /> <br />Then, I sally forth, half sad, half proud, <br />And I come to the velvet, imperial crowd, <br />The wine-red, the gold, the crimson, the pied, -- <br />The dahlias that reign by the garden-side. <br /> <br />The dahlias I might not touch till to-night! <br />A gleam of the shears in the fading light, <br />And I gathered them all, -- the splendid throng, <br />And in one great sheaf I bore them along. <br /> <br />. . . . . <br /> <br />In my garden of Life with its all-late flowers <br />I heed a Voice in the shrinking hours: <br />"Frost to-night -- so clear and dead-still" . . . <br />Half sad, half proud, my arms I fill.<br /><br />Edith Matilda Thomas<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/frost-to-night/
