| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
| |
| To My Grandmother |
| | | Frederick Locker-Lampson (1821–95) |
| | | | | Suggested by a Picture by Mr. Romney |
| |
| |
| THIS relative of mine, | |
| Was she seventy-and-nine | |
| When she died? | |
| By the canvas may be seen | |
| How she look’d at seventeen, | 5 |
| As a bride. | |
| |
| Beneath a summer tree, | |
| Her maiden reverie | |
| Has a charm; | |
| Her ringlets are in taste; | 10 |
| What an arm!… what a waist | |
| For an arm! | |
| |
| With her bridal-wreath, bouquet, | |
| Lace farthingale, and gay | |
| Falbala, | 15 |
| Were Romney’s limning true, | |
| What a lucky dog were you, | |
| Grandpapa! | |
| |
| Her lips are sweet as love; | |
| They are parting! Do they move? | 20 |
| Are they dumb? | |
| Her eyes are blue, and beam | |
| Beseechingly, and seem | |
| To say, “Come!” | |
| |
| What funny fancy slips | 25 |
| From atween these cherry lips! | |
| Whisper me, | |
| Sweet sorceress in paint, | |
| What canon says I may n’t | |
| Marry thee? | 30 |
| |
| That good-for-nothing Time | |
| Has a confidence sublime! | |
| When I first | |
| Saw this lady, in my youth, | |
| Her winters had, forsooth, | 35 |
| Done their worst. | |
| |
| Her locks, as white as snow, | |
| Once sham’d the swarthy crow: | |
| By-and-by | |
| That fowl’s avenging sprite | 40 |
| Set his cruel foot for spite | |
| Near her eye. | |
| |
| Her rounded form was lean, | |
| And her silk was bombazine: | |
| Well I wot | 45 |
| With her needles would she sit, | |
| And for hours would she knit,— | |
| Would she not? | |
| |
| Ah, perishable clay! | |
| Her charms had dropp’d away | 50 |
| One by one; | |
| But if she heav’d a sigh | |
| With a burden, it was, “Thy | |
| Will be done.” | |
| |
| In travail, as in tears, | 55 |
| With the fardel of her years | |
| Overpast, | |
| In mercy she was borne | |
| Where the weary and worn | |
| Are at rest. | 60 |
| |
| Oh, if you now are there, | |
| And sweet as once you were, | |
| Grandmamma, | |
| This nether world agrees | |
| ’T will all the better please | 65 |
| Grandpapa. | |
| |
|
|
|
