Poems (Hoffman)/A Picture

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

For works with similar titles, see A Picture.

A PICTURE.

There are many beautiful pictures
 Hanging in memory's hall,
Pictures of hills and valleys,
 Houses and steeples tall;
Pictures of sunlight and shadow,
 Of faces grave and gay,
And some that rise from the misty past
 Seem to be far away;
But one more beautiful than the rest
 Hangeth apart alone;
And the thoughts it awakens are unexpressed,
 'Tis a picture of my home.
'Tis a little cottage on a hill
 Where the golden sunbeams play,
While the little lambs o'er the meadow run
 And frolic the livelong day.
The creek o'er the pebbles flows along
 Past fields of waving grain;
And the finches and warblers vie in song,
 In one melodious strain.
The old orchard stands in conscious pride,
 Weighed down with ripening fruit;
And the oriole fills the scented air
 With his song like a clear-voiced flute;
But 'tis not for these that I love it best,
 There are many scenes as fair;
But 'tis for the friends so tried and true,
 For the loving hearts that are there.
I look and I see my mother,
 Down the grassy hill-slope walk;
Leading the little brother,
 Who is just beginning to talk.
I can almost hear his prattle
 As he laughs in childish joy;
O, how I wish I could see you,
 Our dear little blue-eyed boy!
I can see my little sister,
 Who is wise beyond her years;
How I wish she could ever be free as now
 From all life's cares and fears.
And all of the other dear ones,
 I can see them all quite well;
Without them the beautiful picture
 Would lose its magic spell.
O, what are earth's fading pictures,
 Or what is the painter's art,
Compared with the pictures of memory
 Engraven on the heart?