C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
To My Grandmother
By Frederick Locker-Lampson (1821–1895)
T
Was she seventy-and-nine
When she died?
By the canvas may be seen
How she looked at seventeen,—
As a bride.
As she sits, her revery
Has a charm;
Her ringlets are in taste,—
What an arm! and what a waist
For an arm!
Lace, ribbons, and coquette
Falbala;
Were Romney’s limning true,
What a lucky dog were you,
Grandpapa!
They are parting! Do they move?
Are they dumb?—
Her eyes are blue, and beam
Beseechingly, and seem
To say, “Come.”
From between these cherry lips?
Whisper me,
Sweet deity in paint,
What canon says I mayn’t
Marry thee?
Has a confidence sublime!
When I first
Saw this lady, in my youth,
Her winters had, forsooth,
Done their worst.
Once shamed the swarthy crow.
By-and-by,
That fowl’s avenging sprite
Set his cloven foot for spite
In her eye.
And her silk was bombazine:—
Well I wot,
With her needles would she sit,
And for hours would she knit,—
Would she not?
Her charms had dropped away
One by one.
But if she heaved a sigh
With a burthen, it was, “Thy
Will be done.”
With the fardel of her years
Overprest,—
In mercy was she borne
Where the weary ones and worn
Are at rest.
If as witching as you were,
Grandmamma!
This nether world agrees
That the better it must please
Grandpapa.