To My Grandmother

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 looked at seventeen,   As a bride. Beneath a summer tree, Her maiden reverie   Has a charm; Her ringlets are in taste; What an arm!… what a waist   For an arm! With her bridal-wreath, bouquet, Lace farthingale, and gay   Falbala. Were Romney’s limning true, What a lucky dog were you,   Grandpapa! Her lips are sweet as love; They are parting! Do they move?   Are they dumb? Her eyes are blue, and beam Beseechingly, and seem   To say, “Come!” What funny fancy slips From atween these cherry lips!   Whisper me. Sweet sorceress in paint, What canon says I mayn’t   Marry thee? That good-for-nothing Time Has a confidence sublime!   When I first Saw this lady, in my youth, Her winters had, forsooth,   Done their worst. Her locks, as white as snow, Once shamed the swarthy crow:   By-and-by That fowl’s avenging sprite Set his cruel foot for spite   Near her eye. Her rounded form was lean, And her silk was bombazine:   Well I wot With her needles would she sit, And for hours would she knit,—   Would she not? Ah, perishable clay! Her charms had dropped away   One by one; But if she heaved a sigh With a burden, it was, “Thy   Will be done.” In travail, as in tears, With the fardel of her years   Overpast, In mercy she was borne Where the weary and the worn   Are at rest. Oh, if you now are there, And sweet as once you were,   Grandmamma, This nether world agrees ’T will all the better please   Grandpapa.