Birthday poems
/ page 15 of 16 /
Occasional Poems
© Delmore Schwartz
I'll drink to thee only with my eyes
When two are three and four,
And guzzle reality's rise and cries
And praise the truth beyond surmise
When small shots shout: More! More! More! More!
The Return of Albert
© Marriott Edgar
You've 'eard 'ow young Albert Ramsbottom,
In the Zoo up at Blackpool one year,
With a stick and 'orse's 'ead 'andle,
Gave a lion a poke in the ear.
Albert's Return
© Marriott Edgar
You've `eard `ow young Albert Ramsbottom
At the zoo up at Blackpool one year
With a stick with an `orse's `ead `andle
Gave a lion a poke in the ear?
Albert and the 'Eadsman
© Marriott Edgar
On young Albert Ramsbottom's birthday
His parents asked what he'd like most;
He said to see t' Tower of London
And gaze upon Anne Boleyn's ghost.
A Ninth Birthday
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
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.
A Baby's Death
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again for goal
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
A little soul.
Alexander And Zenobia
© Anne Brontë
One was a boy of just fourteen
Bold beautiful and bright;
Soft raven curls hung clustering round
A brow of marble white.
I Do, I Will, I Have
© Ogden Nash
How wise I am to have instructed the butler
to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift
© Jonathan Swift
As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew
From nature, I believe 'em true:
They argue no corrupted mind
In him; the fault is in mankind.
Stella's Birthday March 13, 1719
© Jonathan Swift
Stella this day is thirty-four,
(We shan't dispute a year or more:)
However, Stella, be not troubled,
Although thy size and years are doubled,
The Haggis Of Private McPhee
© Robert William Service
"Hae ye heard whit ma auld mither's postit tae me?
It fair maks me hamesick," says Private McPhee.
"And whit did she send ye?" says Private McPhun,
As he cockit his rifle and bleezed at a Hun.
A Sourdough Story
© Robert William Service
Hark to the Sourdough story, told at sixty below,
When the pipes are lit and we smoke and spit
Into the campfire glow.
Rugged are we and hoary, and statin' a general rule,
A genooine Sourdough story
Ain't no yarn for the Sunday School.
Fortitude
© Robert William Service
Time, the Jester, jeers at you;
Your life's a fleeting breath;
Your birthday's flimsy I.O.U.
To that old devil, Death.
Eighty Not Out
© Robert William Service
In the gay, gleamy morn I adore to go walking,
And oh what sweet people I meet on my way!
I hail them with joy for I love to be talking,
Although I have nothing important to say.
Birthday
© Robert William Service
(16th January 1949)I thank whatever gods may be
For all the happiness that's mine;
That I am festive, fit and free
To savour women, wit and wine;
Birthdays
© Robert William Service
Let us have birthdays every day,
(I had the thought while I was shaving)
Because a birthday should be gay,
And full of grace and good behaving.
Crossroads
© Joyce Sutphen
The second half of my life will be ice
breaking up on the river, rain
soaking the fields, a hand
held out, a fire,
and smoke going
upward, always up.
Nursery Rhyme For A Twenty-First Birthday
© Arthur Seymour John Tessimond
You cannot see the walls that divide your hand
From his or hers or mine when you think you touch it.You cannot see the walls because they are glass,
And glass is nothing until you try to pass it.Beat on it if you like, but not too hard,
For glass will break you even while you break it.Shout, and the sound will be broken and driven backwards,
On Being Born The Same Exact Day Of The Same Exact Year As Boy George
© Denise Duhamel
We must have clamored for the same mother, hurried for
the same womb.
I know it now as I read that my birthday is his.
Since the first time I saw his picture, I sensed something
and with a fierce bonding and animosity
began following his career.
