Читать книгу Happy Days for Boys and Girls - Various - Страница 5

I HAVE a little picture;

Perchance you have one too.

Mine is not set in frame of gold;

’Tis first a bit of blue,

And then a background of dark hills —

A river just below,

Along whose broad, green meadow banks

The wreathing elm trees grow.

Upon an overhanging ridge

A little farm-house stands,

Whose owner, like the man of old,

Has builded “on the sands;”

And yet, defying storms and wind,

It stands there all alone,

And brightens up the landscape

With a beauty of its own.

Fairy-like my picture changes

As the seasons come and go.

Now it glows ’neath summer’s kisses;

Now it sleeps ’mid winter’s snow.

I can see the breath of spring-time

In the river’s deeper blue,

And autumn seems to crown it

With her very brightest hue.

Ah. I’d not exchange my picture

For the choicest gem of art;

Yet I must not claim it wholly;

It is only mine in part;

For ’tis one of nature’s sketches —

A waif from that Great Hand

Which hath filled our earth with models

Of the beautiful and grand.