Birthday poems

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Christ God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, 'twas with all his strength.

To My Brothers

© John Keats

Small, busy flames play through the fresh-laid coals,
And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep
Like whispers of the household gods that keep
A gentle empire o'er fraternal souls.

For K.R. on her Sixtieth Birthday

© Richard Wilbur

Blow out the candles of your cake.
They will not leave you in the dark,
Who round with grace this dusky arc
Of the grand tour which souls must take.

The Sins of Kalamazoo

© Carl Sandburg

THE SINS of Kalamazoo are neither scarlet nor crimson.

The sins of Kalamazoo are a convict gray, a dishwater drab.

A Joyful Song Of Five

© Katherine Mansfield

Come, let us all sing very high
And all sing very loud
And keep on singing in the street
Until there's quite a crowd;

The Supplanter: A Tale

© Thomas Hardy

He bends his travel-tarnished feet
To where she wastes in clay:
From day-dawn until eve he fares
Along the wintry way;
From day-dawn until eve repairs
Unto her mound to pray.

Imitations of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book

© Alexander Pope

Though justly Greece her eldest sons admires,
Why should not we be wiser than our sires?
In ev'ry public virtue we excel:
We build, we paint, we sing, we dance as well,
And learned Athens to our art must stoop,
Could she behold us tumbling through a hoop.

Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

© Alexander Pope

Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu'd, I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I'm sick, I'm dead.
The dog-star rages! nay 'tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.

A Birthday Poem

© Ted Kooser

Just past dawn, the sun stands
with its heavy red head
in a black stanchion of trees,
waiting for someone to come

Birthday (Autobiography)

© Robinson Jeffers

Seventy years ago my mother labored to bear me,
A twelve-pound baby with a big head,
Her first, it was plain torture. Finally they used the forceps
And dragged me out, with one prong
In my right eye, and slapped and banged me until I breathed.
I am not particularly grateful for it.