TO MY GRANDMOTHER.

(SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE BY MR. ROMNEY.)

HIS relative of mine

THIS

Was she seventy and nine

When she died?

By the canvas may be seen,

How she look'd at seventeen,

As a bride.

Beneath a summer tree

Her maiden reverie

Has a charm ;

Her ringlets are in taste;

What an arm! and what a waist

For an arm!

TO MY GRANDMOTHER.

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 between these cherry lips?

Whisper me,

Sweet deity in paint,

What canon says I mayn't

Marry thee?

TO MY GRANDMOTHER.

Ah, perishable clay!

Her charms had dropped away

One by one:

But if she heaved a sigh

With a burthen, it was, "Thy

Will be done."

In travail, as in tears,

With the fardel of her years

Overprest,

In mercy she was borne

Where the weary and the worn

Are at rest.

I fain would meet you there ;—

If witching as you were,

Grandmamma,

This nether world agrees

That the better you must please

Grandpapa.