On Amira’s Reading Grandison in the Absence of Portius

The livelong day tho’ some folks say

That Miracles are over,

In silent guise Amira sighs

To mourn her absent Lover.

To Mourn alas! how hard the case

Without a kind condoler;

But – do not start, you have her heart

Tho’ others may console her.

No tell tale I, but when I spy

A fault (alas how common)

A fault so great, who would – but yet

Amira is a Woman.

So close engag’d be not enrag’d;

Be patient – if you can, Sir;

Nor Rake nor Beau could charm her so:

’Tis Grandison’s the Man, Sir!

Text: MS, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regents Park College, STE 3/3/1, p. 67; this poem first published in Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, vol. 2 (ed. Julia B. Griffin), pp. 159-60. Reference in the title is to Samuel Richardson's popular novel, The History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753), which suggests a relative date for the poem.