The one note no-one seems to have made about SDBotts and Emmeline's poetry was
what SLC himself said about it.  When he was working for a philadelphia
newspaper in 1853, his job was to compose -- both set type and write -- this
sort of funereal type.  He and his fellow compositors used to laugh themselves
sick with the blather.  He never lost his taste for ridiculing that type of
poetry.  The same kind of stuff is still printed, at least in the Providence
Journal.  Check the obit pages of your local rag, particularly in the section
where people publish testimonials to their loved ones who died too young.  Same
 motivation, same material, slightly different style.
                                                       Andy Hoffman