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.

Credit

This poem is in the public domain.