Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

To My Grandmother

Frederick Locker-Lampson (1821–1895)

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

As she sits, her reverie

Has a charm;

Her ringlets are in taste,—

What an arm! and what a waist

For an arm!

In bridal coronet,

Lace, ribbons, and coquette

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 deity, 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 cloven foot for spite

In 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 dropp’d 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 was she borne

Where the weary ones and worn

Are at rest.

I’m fain to meet you there,—

If as witching as you were,

Grandmamma!

This nether world agrees

That the better it must please

Grandpapa.