Pictures of Memory

Among the beautiful pictures

  That hang on Memory’s wall.

Is one of a dim old forest,

  That seemeth best of all:

Not for its gnarled oaks olden.

  Dark with the mistletoe;

Not for the violets golden

  That sprinkle the vale below.

Not for the milk-white lilies

  That lean from the fragrant hedge.

Coquetting all day with the sunbeams,

  And stealing their shining edge;

Not for the vines on the upland

  Where the bright red berries be.

Nor the pinks, nor the pale, sweet cowslip,

  It seemeth the best to me.

I once had a little brother,

  With eyes that were dark and deep—

In the lap of that old dim forest

  He lieth in peace asleep:

Light as the down of the thistle.

  Free as the winds that blow.

We roved there the beautiful summers.

  The summers of long ago;

But his feet on the hills grew weary,

  And, one of the autumn eves,

I made for my little brother

  A bed of the yellow leaves.

Sweetly his pale arms folded

  My neck in a meek embrace,

As the light of immortal beauty

  Silently covered his face:

And when the arrows of sunset

  Lodged in the tree-tops bright,

He fell, in his saint-like beauty,

  Asleep by the gates of light.

Therefore, of all the pictures

  That hang on Memory's wall,

The one of the old dim forest

  Seemeth the best of all.