To My Grandmother
To My Grandmother
Original Text
Frederick Locker Lampson, London Lyrics, with introduction and notes by Austin Dobson (London: Macmillan, 1904): 2-5. PR 4891 L2 A17 1904 Robarts Library.
Under the elm a rustic seat
Was merriest Susan's pet retreat
To merry-make.
2Was she seventy-and-nine
3 When she died?
4By the canvas may be seen
5How she look'd at seventeen,
6 As a Bride.
7Beneath a summer tree
8Her maiden reverie
9 Has a charm;
10Her ringlets are in taste;
11What an arm! and what a waist
12 For an arm!
13With her bridal-wreath, bouquet,
14Lace farthingale, and gay
15 Falbala, --
16If Romney's touch be true,
17What a lucky dog were you,
18 Grandpapa!
19Her lips are sweet as love;
20They are parting! Do they move?
21 Are they dumb?
22Her eyes are blue, and beam
23Beseechingly, and seem
24 To say, "Come!"
25What funny fancy slips
26From atween these cherry lips?
27 Whisper me,
28Fair Sorceress in paint,
30 Marry thee!
31That good-for-nothing Time
32Has a confidence sublime!
33 When I first
34Saw this Lady, in my youth,
35Her winters had, forsooth,
36 Done their worst.
37Her locks, as white as snow,
38Once shamed the swarthy crow;
39 By-and-by
40That fowl's avenging sprite
41Set his cruel foot for spite
42 Near her eye.
43Her rounded form was lean,
45 Well I wot
46With her needles would she sit,
47And for hours would she knit, --
48 Would she not?
49Ah perishable clay!
50Her charms had dropt away
51 One by one:
52But if she heaved a sigh
53With a burthen, it was, "Thy
54 Will be done."
55In travail, as in tears,
57 Overprest,
58In mercy she was borne
59Where the weary and the worn
60 Are at rest.
61Oh if you now are there,
62And sweet as once you were,
63 Grandmamma,
64This nether world agrees
65You'll all the better please
66 Grandpapa.
Notes
1] [First published in the edition of 1862, p. 86. Whether the `picture by Mr. Romney,' which purports to have suggested these verses, is duly chronicled in Mr. Humphry Ward's monumental Catalogue of that painter's works, we cannot pretend to say; but, judging from the frequent appearance of the poem in different anthologies, it must be one of the author's most popular efforts. It is therefore worth noting that, apparently, it was never printed in a magazine. `I could get no one to accept "My Grandmother,"' writes the author in a letter quoted in Once a Week for September 7, 1872. `What used particularly to discourage me was,' -- he adds characteristically, -- `having my verses returned as not suitable, and then to see in the very next number of the magazine a poem that gave me the impression that it was the work of some relative of the editor --perhaps his grandmamma.' The stanza of `My Grandmother' is that of Holmes's `Last Leaf' -- a poem which Locker greatly admired. Holmes, in his turn, had taken the stanza from Longfellow.] (Note by Austin Dobson, p. 169)
The epigraph is from Locker Lampson's own poem, "Susannah. I. The Elder Trees," lines 3-4. Back to Line
The epigraph is from Locker Lampson's own poem, "Susannah. I. The Elder Trees," lines 3-4. Back to Line
15] Falbala: flounce, trimming for a woman's petticoat. Back to Line
29] canon: law of the church. Back to Line
44] bombazine: a twilled or corded dress material often made of a combination of cotton, silk, and worsted. Back to Line
56] fardel: burden. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1862
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme