Birthday Poems

"one and twenty
Ling'ring year at last has flown,
Pomp and pleasure, pride and plenty
Great Sir John, are all your own. "

"But, like a sieve, let ev’ry blessing thro’,
Some joy still lost, as each vain year runs o’er,
And all we gain, some sad Reflection more;
Is that a birthday? ’t is alas! too clear,"

"My birthday began with the water- Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose"

"Let me go back to your last birthday. Then
I was already your one man of men
Appointed to complete you, and fulfil
From everlasting the eternal will."

"Thirty today, I saw
The trees flare briefly like
The candles on a cake,"

"Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain,
See aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
At thy blythe carol, clears his furrowed brow"

"Three times thrice hath winter's rough white wing
Crossed and curdled wells and streams with ice
Since his birth whose praises love would sing
Three times thrice."

"My mother groand! my father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt:
Helpless, naked, piping loud;
Like a fiend hid in a cloud. "

"I strove with none; for none was worth my strife, Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of life, It sinks, and I am ready to depart."

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;