A Picture

Charles Gamage Eastman (1816–1860)

THE FARMER sat in his easy-chair,

Smoking his pipe of clay,

While his hale old wife, with busy care,

Was clearing the dinner away;

A sweet little girl, with fine blue eyes,

On her grandfather’s knee was catching flies.

The old man laid his hand on her head,

With a tear on his wrinkled face;

He thought how often her mother, dead,

Had sat in the self-same place.

As the tear stole down from his half-shut eye,

“Don’t smoke!” said the child; “how it makes you cry!”

The house-dog lay stretched out on the floor,

Where the shade after noon used to steal;

The busy old wife, by the open door,

Was turning the spinning-wheel;

And the old brass clock on the mantel-tree

Had plodded along to almost three.

Still the farmer sat in his easy-chair,

While close to his heaving breast

The moistened brow and the cheek so fair

Of his sweet grandchild were pressed;

His head, bent down, on her soft hair lay:

Fast asleep were they both, that summer day!