Birthday poems
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Count Gismond—Aix in Provence
© Robert Browning
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, 't was with all his strength.
here rests
© Paul Celan
my sister Josephine
born july in '29
and dead these 15 years
who carried a book
on every stroll.
To One Of The Author's Children
© Felicia Dorothea Hemans
THOU wak'st from happy sleep to play
With bounding heart, my boy!
Before thee lies a long bright day
Of summer and of joy.
A Birthday Greeting: To My Little Nephew
© Annie McCarer Darlington
I know a happy little boy,
They call him Charlie Gray,
Whose face is bright, because you know,
He's six years old to-day.
On My Mother's Birthday
© Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Clad in all their brightest green,
This day verdant fields are seen;
The tuneful birds begin their lay,
To celebrate thy natal day.
After the Gentle Poet Kobayashi Issa
© Robert Hass
New Year’s morning—
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.
A Poem for the Cruel Majority
© Jerome Rothenberg
Nothing can make the dark turn into light
for the cruel majority.
Nothing can make them feel hunger or terror.
Humboldts Birthday
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
ERE yet the warning chimes of midnight sound,
Set back the flaming index of the year,
Track the swift-shifting seasons in their round
Through fivescore circles of the swinging sphere!
The Turtle Shrine Near Chittagong
© Naomi Shihab Nye
Humps of shell emerge from dark water.
Believers toss hunks of bread,
hoping the fat reptilian heads
will loom forth from the murk
and eat. Meaning: you have been
heard.
The Poet And The Children
© John Greenleaf Whittier
WITH a glory of winter sunshine
Over his locks of gray,
In the old historic mansion
He sat on his last birthday;
Hymn to Life
© James Schuyler
The wind rests its cheek upon the ground and feels the cool damp
And lifts its head with twigs and small dead blades of grass
Imitations of Horace
© Alexander Pope
While you, great patron of mankind, sustain
The balanc'd world, and open all the main;
Your country, chief, in arms abroad defend,
At home, with morals, arts, and laws amend;
How shall the Muse, from such a monarch steal
An hour, and not defraud the public weal?
Effort at Speech Between Two People
© Katha Pollitt
: Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now?
I will tell you all. I will conceal nothing.
When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit
who died, in the story, and I crawled under a chair :
a pink rabbit : it was my birthday, and a candle
burnt a sore spot on my finger, and I was told to be happy.
Stella's Birthday March 13, 1727
© Jonathan Swift
Although we now can form no more
Long schemes of life, as heretofore;
Yet you, while time is running fast,
Can look with joy on what is past.
To Dick, On His Sixth Birthday
© Sara Teasdale
Tho' I am very old and wise,
And you are neither wise nor old,
When I look far into your eyes,
I know things I was never told:
Counting Backwards
© Linda Pastan
How did I get so old,
I wonder,
contemplating
my 67th birthday.
Dyslexia smiles:
I’m 76 in fact.
