Return from Hawking: On a Picture by Landseer

They form a picture that appears of Eld—

The beauteous mother and the husband bold,

And smiling infant like a rose-bud held

Upon the parent-stem, but half unrolled,

Yet blushing brightly in each crimson fold.

The household steed, in quiet sympathy,

Looks silent on and seems to share their glee.

The shaggy dog that wakes the forest old

With joyous echoes as he bounds along,

Starting the heron from his reedy lair—

These, while the morning sunbeams slant along

Through that old portal, massy, grim and bare,

Stand, grouped together,—emblems fit, I ween,

Of many another quiet household scene!

E.

published in Graham’s Magazine, April 1842