A Birthday Song. To S. G

Related poetry:

1. A Ninth Birthday 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. Earth nor sea bears flower nor pearl of price Fit to crown the forehead of my king, Honey meet to please him, balm, nor spice. Love can think […]...
2. Morning Song Of Senlin from Senlin: A Biography It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning When the light drips through the shutters like the dew, I arise, I face the sunrise, And do the things my fathers learned to do. Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die, […]...
3. A Song of Autumn ‘WHERE shall we go for our garlands glad At the falling of the year, When the burnt-up banks are yellow and sad, When the boughs are yellow and sere? Where are the old ones that once we had, And when are the new ones near? What shall we do for our garlands glad At the […]...
4. On A Palmetto Through all that year-scarred agony of height, Unblest of bough or bloom, to where expands His wandy circlet with his bladed bands Dividing every wind, or loud or light, To termless hymns of love and old despite, Yon tall palmetto in the twilight stands, Bare Dante of these purgatorial sands That glimmer marginal to the […]...
5. A Dead Rose O Rose! who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet; But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat, – Kept seven years in a drawer – thy titles shame thee. The breeze that used to blow thee Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away An odour up the lane to […]...
6. Woods in Winter When winter winds are piercing chill, And through the hawthorn blows the gale, With solemn feet I tread the hill, That overbrows the lonely vale. O’er the bare upland, and away Through the long reach of desert woods, The embracing sunbeams chastely play, And gladden these deep solitudes. Where, twisted round the barren oak, The […]...
7. 466. Ode for General Washington's Birthday NO Spartan tube, no Attic shell, No lyre Æolian I awake; ‘Tis liberty’s bold note I swell, Thy harp, Columbia, let me take! See gathering thousands, while I sing, A broken chain exulting bring, And dash it in a tyrant’s face, And dare him to his very beard, And tell him he no more is […]...
8. Song from Aella O SING unto my roundelay, O drop the briny tear with me; Dance no more at holyday, Like a running river be: My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed All under the willow-tree. Black his cryne as the winter night, White his rode as the summer snow, Red his face as the morning light, […]...
9. Stella's Birthday March 13, 1719 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, Since first I saw thee at sixteen, The brightest virgin on the green; So little is thy form declin’d; Made up so largely in thy mind. Oh, would it please the […]...
10. Poem On His Birthday In the mustardseed sun, By full tilt river and switchback sea Where the cormorants scud, In his house on stilts high among beaks And palavers of birds This sandgrain day in the bent bay’s grave He celebrates and spurns His driftwood thirty-fifth wind turned age; Herons spire and spear. Under and round him go Flounders, […]...
11. Chorus from Atalanta in Calydon When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nigthingale amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, The […]...
12. Don’t Tell the World that You’re Waiting for Me THREE summers have gone since the first time we met, love, And still ’tis in vain that I ask thee to wed ; I hear no reply but a gentle ” Not yet, love,” With a smile of your lip, and a shake of your head. Ah! how oft have I whispered, how oft have […]...
13. To the Memory of Mrs. Lefroy who died Dec:r 16 my Birthday The day returns again, my natal day; What mix’d emotions with the Thought arise! Beloved friend, four years have pass’d away Since thou wert snatch’d forever from our eyes. The day, commemorative of my birth Bestowing Life and Light and Hope on me, Brings back the hour which was thy last on Earth. Oh! bitter […]...
14. The Last Leaf I saw him once before, As he passed by the door, And again The pavement stones resound, As he totters o’er the ground With his cane. They say that in his prime, Ere the pruning-knife of Time Cut him down, Not a better man was found By the Crier on his round Through the town. […]...
15. A Birthday Wish I wish you love and laughter, Happiness and cheer, I hope that you’ll have fun Today… And throughout the coming Year. I hope your aspirations will Become reality… I hope you’ll be exactly what You really want to be. But most of all I hope this Birthday’s better than the Rest… For you’re a special […]...
16. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 2. Old Yew, which graspest at the sto Old Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lying dead, Thy fibres net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men. O not […]...
17. In Back Of The Real railroad yard in San Jose I wandered desolate In front of a tank factory and sat on a bench Near the switchman’s shack. A flower lay on the hay on the asphalt highway the dread hay flower I thought It had a Brittle black stem and corolla of yellowish dirty Spikes like Jesus’ inchlong crown, […]...
18. You Only a long, low-lying lane That follows to the misty sea, Across a bare and russet plain Where wild winds whistle vagrantly; I know that many a fairer path With lure of song and bloom may woo, But oh! I love this lonely strath Because it is so full of you. Here we have walked […]...
19. A Birthday “Aug.” 10, 1911. Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres! A year of infinite love unwearying – No circling seasons, but perennial spring! A year of triumph trampling through defeat, The first made holy and the last made sweet By this same love; a year […]...
20. Birthday (Autobiography) 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. As to […]...
21. In Memoriam A. H. H.: 39. Old warder of these buried bones Old warder of these buried bones, And answering now my random stroke With fruitful cloud and living smoke, Dark yew, that graspest at the stones And dippest toward the dreamless head, To thee too comes the golden hour When flower is feeling after flower; But Sorrow fixt upon the dead, And darkening the dark graves […]...
22. Mad Song The wild winds weep And the night is a-cold; Come hither, Sleep, And my griefs infold: But lo! the morning peeps Over the eastern steeps, And the rustling birds of dawn The earth do scorn. Lo! to the vault Of paved heaven, With sorrow fraught My notes are driven: They strike the ear of night, […]...
23. 395. Sonnet on the Author's Birthday 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. So in lone Poverty’s dominion drear, Sits meek Content with light, unanxious heart; Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part, Nor asks if […]...
24. 318. Song-The Banks o' Doon (Third Version) YE banks and braes o’ bonie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae weary fu’ o’ care! Thou’ll break my heart, thou warbling bird, That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn: Thou minds me o’ departed joys, Departed never to return. Aft hae I […]...
25. Dream Song 102: The sunburnt terraces which swans make home The sunburnt terraces which swans make home With water purling, Macchu Pichu died Like Delphi long ago— A message to Justinian closing it out, The thousand years’ authority, although Tho’ never found exactly wrong Political patterns did indeed emerge; The Oracle was conservative, like Lippmann, Roared the winds on the height, The Shining Ones behind […]...
26. Song Oh! To be a flower Nodding in the sun, Bending, then upspringing As the breezes run; Holding up A scent-brimmed cup, Full of summer’s fragrance to the summer sun. Oh! To be a butterfly Still, upon a flower, Winking with its painted wings, Happy in the hour. Blossoms hold Mines of gold Deep within the […]...
27. A Prayer for a Mother's Birthday Lord Jesus, Thou hast known A mother’s love and tender care: And Thou wilt hear, while for my own Mother most dear I make this birthday prayer. Protect her life, I pray, Who gave the gift of life to me; And may she know, from day to day, The deepening glow of Life that comes […]...
28. Ninetieth Birthday You go up the long track That will take a car, but is best walked On slow foot, noting the lichen That writes history on the page Of the grey rock. Trees are about you At first, but yield to the green bracken, The nightjars house: you can hear it spin On warm evenings; it […]...
29. A Valentine's Song MOTLEY I count the only wear That suits, in this mixed world, the truly wise, Who boldly smile upon despair And shake their bells in Grandam Grundy’s eyes. Singers should sing with such a goodly cheer That the bare listening should make strong like wine, At this unruly time of year, The Feast of Valentine. […]...
30. On your birthday, today On your birthday, today, there is time to reflect On the essence of our intimacy, From a beginning in the spring-tide of youth To an afterward secured in the distant mist, And for what reason and to what end it endures. Each year I feel the consequence, keen With up-welling of sentiment, Where new love […]...
31. 438. Impromptu on Mrs. Riddell's Birthday OLD Winter, with his frosty beard, Thus once to Jove his prayer preferred: “What have I done of all the year, To bear this hated doom severe? My cheerless suns no pleasure know; Night’s horrid car drags, dreary slow; My dismal months no joys are crowning, But spleeny English hanging, drowning. “Now Jove, for once […]...
32. The wanderer Upon a mountain height, far from the sea, I found a shell, And to my listening ear the lonely thing Ever a song of ocean seemed to sing, Ever a tale of ocean seemed to tell. How came the shell upon that mountain height? Ah, who can say Whether there dropped by some too careless […]...
33. On His Eightieth Birthday To my ninth decade I have tottered on, And no soft arm bends now my steps to steady; She, who once led me where she would, is gone, So when he calls me, Death shall find me ready....
34. Dream Song 48: He yelled at me in Greek He yelled at me in Greek, My God! —It’s not his language And I’m no good at—his Aramaic, Was—I am a monoglot of English (American version) and, say pieces from A baker’s dozen others: where’s the bread? But rising in the Second Gospel, pal: The seed goes down, god dies, A rising happens, Some crust, […]...
35. My Pretty Rose Tree A flower was offered to me; Such a flower as May never bore. But I said I’ve a Pretty Rose-tree. And I passed the sweet flower o’er. Then I went to my Pretty Rose-tree: To tend her by day and by night. But my Rose turnd away with jealousy: And her thorns were my only […]...
36. An Ode to Master Endymion Porter, Upon His Brother's Death Not all thy flushing suns are set, Herrick, as yet ; Nor doth this far-drawn hemisphere Frown and look sullen ev’rywhere. Days may conclude in nights, and suns may rest As dead within the west ; Yet, the next morn, regild the fragrant east. Alas! for me, that I have lost E’en all almost ; […]...
37. Consumption Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine Too brightly to shine long; another Spring Shall deck her for men’s eyes – but not for thine – Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening. The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf, And the vexed ore no mineral of power; And they who […]...
38. Song VI: Cherish Life that Abideth Love is enough: cherish life that abideth, Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him; For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth, On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth? And what is the joy of man’s life that ye blame him For his bliss […]...
39. Song for All Seas, All Ships 1 TO-DAY a rude brief recitative, Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal; Of unnamed heroes in the ships-Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach; Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing; And out of these a chant, for the sailors of all nations, […]...
40. To love thee Year by Year To love thee Year by Year May less appear Than sacrifice, and cease However, dear, Forever might be short, I thought to show And so I pieced it, with a flower, now....