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, 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 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. 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, 9 And for hours would she knit,— Would she not? 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. REPLY TO A LETTER ENCLOSING Α LOCK OF HAIR. ́ES, you were false, and though I'm free, YES I still would be the slave of yore; Then join'd our years were thirty-three, And now, yes, now, I'm thirty-four. And though you were not learned-well, I trembled once beneath her spell Whose spelling was extremely so-so! Bright season! Why will Memory Still haunt the path our rambles took, The sparrow's nest that made you cry, The lilies captured in the brook? I lifted you from side to side, You seem'd as light as that poor sparrow ; I know who wish'd it twice as wide, I think you thought it rather narrow. |