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 from Thee. As once upon her breast Fearless and well content I lay, So let her heart, on Thee at rest, Feel fears depart and troubles fade away. Her every wish fulfill; And even if Thou must refuse In anything, let Thy wise will A comfort bring such as kind mothers use. Ah, hold her by the hand, As once her hand held mine; And though she may not understand Life's winding way, lead her in peace divine. I cannot pay my debt For all the love that she has given; But Thou, love's Lord, wilt not forget Her due reward,--bless her in earth and heaven.

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 of wealth and woe, Joy, poverty, health, sickness --- all one glow In the pure light that filled our firmament Of supreme silence and unbarred extent, Wherein one sacrament was ours, one Lord, One resurrection, one recurrent chord, One incarnation, one descending dove, All these being one, and that one being Love! You sent your spirit into tunes; my soul Yearned in a thousand melodies to enscroll Its happiness: I left no flower unplucked That might have graced your garland. I induct Tragedy, comedy, farce, fable, song, Each longing a little, each a little long, But each aspiring only to express Your excellence and my unworthiness --- Nay! but my worthiness, since I was sense And spirit too of that same excellence. So thus we solved the earth's revolving riddle: I could write verse, and you could play the fiddle, While, as for love, the sun went through the signs, And not a star but told him how love twines A wreath for every decanate, degree, Minute and second, linked eternally In chains of flowers that never fading are, Each one as sempiternal as a star. 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. We lay within the flood of crimson light In my own balcony that August night, And conjuring the aright and the averse Created yet another universe. We worked together; dance and rite and spell Arousing heaven and constraining hell. We lived together; every hour of rest Was honied from your tiger-lily breast. We --- oh what lingering doubt or fear betrayed My life to fate! --- we parted. Was I afraid? I was afraid, afraid to live my love, Afraid you played the serpent, I the dove, Afraid of what I know not. I am glad Of all the shame and wretchedness I had, Since those six weeks have taught me not to doubt you, And also that I cannot live without you. Then I came back to you; black treasons rear Their heads, blind hates, deaf agonies of fear, Cruelty, cowardice, falsehood, broken pledges, The temple soiled with senseless sacrileges, Sickness and poverty, a thousand evils, Concerted malice of a million devils; --- You never swerved; your high-pooped galleon Went marvellously, majestically on Full-sailed, while every other braver bark Drove on the rocks, or foundered in the dark. Then Easter, and the days of all delight! God's sun lit noontide and his moon midnight, While above all, true centre of our world, True source of light, our great love passion-pearled Gave all its life and splendour to the sea Above whose tides stood our stability. Then sudden and fierce, no monitory moan, Smote the mad mischief of the great cyclone. How far below us all its fury rolled! How vainly sulphur tries to tarnish gold! We lived together: all its malice meant Nothing but freedom of a continent! It was the forest and the river that knew The fact that one and one do not make two. We worked, we walked, we slept, we were at ease, We cried, we quarrelled; all the rocks and trees For twenty miles could tell how lovers played, And we could count a kiss for every glade. Worry, starvation, illness and distress? Each moment was a mine of happiness. Then we grew tired of being country mice, Came up to Paris, lived our sacrifice There, giving holy berries to the moon, July's thanksgiving for the joys of June. And you are gone away --- and how shall I Make August sing the raptures of July? And you are gone away --- what evil star Makes you so competent and popular? How have I raised this harpy-hag of Hell's Malice --- that you are wanted somewhere else? I wish you were like me a man forbid, Banned, outcast, nice society well rid Of the pair of us --- then who would interfere With us? --- my darling, you would now be here! But no! we must fight on, win through, succeed, Earn the grudged praise that never comes to meed, Lash dogs to kennel, trample snakes, put bit In the mule-mouths that have such need of it, Until the world there's so much to forgive in Becomes a little possible to live in. God alone knows if battle or surrender Be the true courage; either has its splendour. But since we chose the first, God aid the right, And damn me if I fail you in the fight! God join again the ways that lie apart, And bless the love of loyal heart to heart! God keep us every hour in every thought, And bring the vessel of our love to port! These are my birthday wishes. Dawn's at hand, And you're an exile in a lonely land. But what were magic if it could not give My thought enough vitality to live? Do not then dream this night has been a loss! All night I have hung, a god, upon the cross; All night I have offered incense at the shrine; All night you have been unutterably mine, Miner in the memory of the first wild hour When my rough grasp tore the unwilling flower From your closed garden, mine in every mood, In every tense, in every attitude, In every possibility, still mine While the sun's pomp and pageant, sign to sign, Stately proceeded, mine not only so In the glamour of memory and austral glow Of ardour, but by image of my brow Stronger than sense, you are even here and now Miner, utterly mine, my sister and my wife, Mother of my children, mistress of my life! O wild swan winging through the morning mist! The thousand thousand kisses that we kissed, The infinite device our love devised If by some chance its truth might be surprised, Are these all past? Are these to come? Believe me, There is no parting; they can never leave me. I have built you up into my heart and brain So fast that we can never part again. Why should I sing you these fantastic psalms When all the time I have you in my arms? Why? 'tis the murmur of our love that swells Earth's dithyrambs and ocean's oracles. But this is dawn; my soul shall make its nest Where your sighs swing from rapture into rest Love's thurible, your tiger-lily breast.

For ever wave, for ever float and shine Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine, A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead, Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o'erhead. This vine bore many blossoms, which were years. Their petals, red with joy, or bleached by tears, Waved to and fro i' the winds of hopes and fears. Here all men clung, each hanging by his spray. Anon, one dropped; his neighbor 'gan to pray; And so they clung and dropped and prayed, alway. But I did mark one lately-opened bloom, Wherefrom arose a visible perfume That wrapped me in a cloud of dainty gloom. And rose -- an odor by a spirit haunted -- And drew me upward with a speed enchanted, Swift floating, by wild sea or sky undaunted, Straight through the cloud of death, where men are free. I gained a height, and stayed and bent my knee. Then glowed my cloud, and broke and unveiled thee. "O flower-born and flower-souled!" I said, "Be the year-bloom that breathed thee ever red, Nor wither, yellow, down among the dead. "May all that cling to sprays of time, like me, Be sweetly wafted over sky and sea By rose-breaths shrining maidens like to thee!" Then while we sat upon the height afar Came twilight, like a lover late from war, With soft winds fluting to his evening star. And the shy stars grew bold and scattered gold, And chanting voices ancient secrets told, And an acclaim of angels earthward rolled.

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 pang of torturing Memory!-- Angelic Woman! past my power to praise In Language meet, thy Talents, Temper, mind. Thy solid Worth, they captivating Grace!-- Thou friend and ornament of Humankind!-- At Johnson's death by Hamilton t'was said, 'Seek we a substitute--Ah! vain the plan, No second best remains to Johnson dead-- None can remind us even of the Man.' So we of thee--unequall'd in thy race Unequall'd thou, as he the first of Men. Vainly we wearch around the vacant place, We ne'er may look upon thy like again. Come then fond Fancy, thou indulgant Power,-- --Hope is desponding, chill, severe to thee!-- Bless thou, this little portion of an hour, Let me behold her as she used to be. I see her here, with all her smiles benign, Her looks of eager Love, her accents sweet. That voice and Countenance almost divine!-- Expression, Harmony, alike complete.-- I listen--'tis not sound alone--'tis sense, 'Tis Genius, Taste and Tenderness of Soul. 'Tis genuine warmth of heart without pretence And purity of Mind that crowns the whole. She speaks; 'tis Eloquence--that grace of Tongue So rare, so lovely!--Never misapplied By her to palliate Vice, or deck a Wrong, She speaks and reasons but on Virtue's side. Her's is the Engergy of Soul sincere. Her Christian Spirit ignorant to feign, Seeks but to comfort, heal, enlighten, chear, Confer a pleasure, or prevent a pain.-- Can ought enhance such Goodness?--Yes, to me, Her partial favour from my earliest years Consummates all.--Ah! Give me yet to see Her smile of Love.--the Vision diappears. 'Tis past and gone--We meet no more below. Short is the Cheat of Fancy o'er the Tomb. Oh! might I hope to equal Bliss to go! To meet thee Angel! in thy future home!-- Fain would I feel an union in thy fate, Fain would I seek to draw an Omen fair From this connection in our Earthly date. Indulge the harmless weakness--Reason, spare.--

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 they bring ought to hope or fear. I thank thee, Author of this opening day! Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies! Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys— What wealth could never give nor take away! Yet come, thou child of poverty and care, The mite high heav’n bestow’d, that mite with thee I’ll share.

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 be mighty civil. To counterbalance all this evil; Give me, and I’ve no more to say, Give me Maria’s natal day! That brilliant gift shall so enrich me, Spring, Summer, Autumn, cannot match me.” “’Tis done!” says Jove; so ends my story, And Winter once rejoiced in glory.

AFAR 1 the illustrious Exile roams, Whom kingdoms on this day should hail; An inmate in the casual shed, On transient pity’s bounty fed, Haunted by busy memory’s bitter tale! Beasts of the forest have their savage homes, But He, who should imperial purple wear, Owns not the lap of earth where rests his royal head! His wretched refuge, dark despair, While ravening wrongs and woes pursue, And distant far the faithful few Who would his sorrows share. False flatterer, Hope, away! Nor think to lure us as in days of yore: We solemnize this sorrowing natal day, To prove our loyal truth-we can no more, And owning Heaven’s mysterious sway, Submissive, low adore. Ye honored, mighty Dead, Who nobly perished in the glorious cause, Your King, your Country, and her laws, From great DUNDEE, who smiling Victory led, And fell a Martyr in her arms, (What breast of northern ice but warms!) To bold BALMERINO’S undying name, Whose soul of fire, lighted at Heaven’s high flame, Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim: Nor unrevenged your fate shall lie, It only lags, the fatal hour, Your blood shall, with incessant cry, Awake at last, th’ unsparing Power; As from the cliff, with thundering course, The snowy ruin smokes along With doubling speed and gathering force, Till deep it, crushing, whelms the cottage in the vale; So Vengeance’ arm, ensanguin’d, strong, Shall with resistless might assail, Usurping Brunswick’s pride shall lay, And STEWART’S wrongs and yours, with tenfold weight repay. PERDITION, baleful child of night! Rise and revenge the injured right Of STEWART’S royal race: Lead on the unmuzzled hounds of hell, Till all the frighted echoes tell The blood-notes of the chase! Full on the quarry point their view, Full on the base usurping crew, The tools of faction, and the nation’s curse! Hark how the cry grows on the wind; They leave the lagging gale behind, Their savage fury, pitiless, they pour; With murdering eyes already they devour; See Brunswick spent, a wretched prey, His life one poor despairing day, Where each avenging hour still ushers in a worse! Such havock, howling all abroad, Their utter ruin bring, The base apostates to their God, Or rebels to their King.

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 feared— No more the despot of Columbia’s race! A tyrant’s proudest insults brav’d, They shout—a People freed! They hail an Empire saved. Where is man’s god-like form? Where is that brow erect and bold— That eye that can unmov’d behold The wildest rage, the loudest storm That e’er created fury dared to raise? Avaunt! thou caitiff, servile, base, That tremblest at a despot’s nod, Yet, crouching under the iron rod, Canst laud the hand that struck th’ insulting blow! Art thou of man’s Imperial line? Dost boast that countenance divine? Each skulking feature answers, No! But come, ye sons of Liberty, Columbia’s offspring, brave as free, In danger’s hour still flaming in the van, Ye know, and dare maintain, the Royalty of Man! Alfred! on thy starry throne, Surrounded by the tuneful choir, The bards that erst have struck the patriot lyre, And rous’d the freeborn Briton’s soul of fire, No more thy England own! Dare injured nations form the great design, To make detested tyrants bleed? Thy England execrates the glorious deed! Beneath her hostile banners waving, Every pang of honour braving, England in thunder calls, “The tyrant’s cause is mine!” That hour accurst how did the fiends rejoice And hell, thro’ all her confines, raise the exulting voice, That hour which saw the generous English name Linkt with such damned deeds of everlasting shame! Thee, Caledonia! thy wild heaths among, Fam’d for the martial deed, the heaven-taught song, To thee I turn with swimming eyes; Where is that soul of Freedom fled? Immingled with the mighty dead, Beneath that hallow’d turf where Wallace lies Hear it not, WALLACE! in thy bed of death. Ye babbling winds! in silence sweep, Disturb not ye the hero’s sleep, Nor give the coward secret breath! Is this the ancient Caledonian form, Firm as the rock, resistless as the storm? Show me that eye which shot immortal hate, Blasting the despot’s proudest bearing; Show me that arm which, nerv’d with thundering fate, Crush’d Usurpation’s boldest daring!— Dark-quench’d as yonder sinking star, No more that glance lightens afar; That palsied arm no more whirls on the waste of war.

Birthday of but a single pang That there are less to come -- Afflictive is the Adjective But affluent the doom –

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 is still now In the noonday heat, only the lesser Voices sound, blue-fly and gnat And the stream's whisper. As the road climbs, You will pause for breath and the far sea's Signal will flash, till you turn again To the steep track, buttressed with cloud. And there at the top that old woman, Born almost a century back In that stone farm, awaits your coming; Waits for the news of the lost village She thinks she knows, a place that exists In her memory only. You bring her greeting And praise for having lasted so long With time's knife shaving the bone. Yet no bridge joins her own World with yours, all you can do Is lean kindly across the abyss To hear words that were once wise.

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, gulls, on their cold, dying trails, Doing what they are told, Curlews aloud in the congered waves Work at their ways to death, And the rhymer in the long tongued room, Who tolls his birthday bell, Toils towards the ambush of his wounds; Herons, steeple stemmed, bless. In the thistledown fall, He sings towards anguish; finches fly In the claw tracks of hawks On a seizing sky; small fishes glide Through wynds and shells of drowned Ship towns to pastures of otters. He In his slant, racking house And the hewn coils of his trade perceives Herons walk in their shroud, The livelong river's robe Of minnows wreathing around their prayer; And far at sea he knows, Who slaves to his crouched, eternal end Under a serpent cloud, Dolphins dive in their turnturtle dust, The rippled seals streak down To kill and their own tide daubing blood Slides good in the sleek mouth. In a cavernous, swung Wave's silence, wept white angelus knells. Thirty-five bells sing struck On skull and scar where his loves lie wrecked, Steered by the falling stars. And to-morrow weeps in a blind cage Terror will rage apart Before chains break to a hammer flame And love unbolts the dark And freely he goes lost In the unknown, famous light of great And fabulous, dear God. Dark is a way and light is a place, Heaven that never was Nor will be ever is always true, And, in that brambled void, Plenty as blackberries in the woods The dead grow for His joy. There he might wander bare With the spirits of the horseshoe bay Or the stars' seashore dead, Marrow of eagles, the roots of whales And wishbones of wild geese, With blessed, unborn God and His Ghost, And every soul His priest, Gulled and chanter in young Heaven's fold Be at cloud quaking peace, But dark is a long way. He, on the earth of the night, alone With all the living, prays, Who knows the rocketing wind will blow The bones out of the hills, And the scythed boulders bleed, and the last Rage shattered waters kick Masts and fishes to the still quick starts, Faithlessly unto Him Who is the light of old And air shaped Heaven where souls grow wild As horses in the foam: Oh, let me midlife mourn by the shrined And druid herons' vows The voyage to ruin I must run, Dawn ships clouted aground, Yet, though I cry with tumbledown tongue, Count my blessings aloud: Four elements and five Senses, and man a spirit in love Tangling through this spun slime To his nimbus bell cool kingdom come And the lost, moonshine domes, And the sea that hides his secret selves Deep in its black, base bones, Lulling of spheres in the seashell flesh, And this last blessing most, That the closer I move To death, one man through his sundered hulks, The louder the sun blooms And the tusked, ramshackling sea exults; And every wave of the way And gale I tackle, the whole world then, With more triumphant faith That ever was since the world was said, Spins its morning of praise, I hear the bouncing hills Grow larked and greener at berry brown Fall and the dew larks sing Taller this thunderclap spring, and how More spanned with angles ride The mansouled fiery islands! Oh, Holier then their eyes, And my shining men no more alone As I sail out to die.

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, For glass, though clear as water, is deaf as granite. This fraudulent inhibition is cunning: wise men Content themselves with breathing patterns on it.

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 of nought but love to bring Fit to serve or do him sacrifice Ere his eyes have looked upon the spring Three times thrice. II. Three times thrice the world has fallen on slumber, Shone and waned and withered in a trice, Frost has fettered Thames and Tyne and Humber Three times thrice, Fogs have swoln too thick for steel to slice, Cloud and mud have soiled with grime and umber Earth and heaven, defaced as souls with vice, Winds have risen to wreck, snows fallen to cumber, Ships and chariots, trapped like rats or mice, Since my king first smiled, whose years now number Three times thrice. III. Three times thrice, in wine of song full-flowing, Pledge, my heart, the child whose eyes suffice, Once beheld, to set thy joy-bells going Three times thrice. Not the lands of palm and date and rice Glow more bright when summer leaves them glowing, Laugh more light when suns and winds entice. Noon and eve and midnight and cock-crowing, Child whose love makes life as paradise, Love should sound your praise with clarions blowing Three times thrice.

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 gods to split Thy beauty, size, and years, and wit; No age could furnish out a pair Of nymphs so graceful, wise, and fair; With half the lustre of your eyes, With half your wit, your years, and size. And then, before it grew too late, How should I beg of gentle Fate, (That either nymph might have her swain,) To split my worship too in twain.

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. We can't have cakes and candles bright, And presents are beyond our giving, But let lt us cherish with delight The birthday way of lovely living. For I have passed three-score and ten And I can count upon my fingers The years I hope to bide with men, (Though by God's grace one often lingers.) So in the summers left to me, Because I'm blest beyond my merit, I hope with gratitude and glee To sparkle with the birthday spirit. Let me inform myself each day Who's proudmost on the natal roster; If Washington or Henry Clay, Or Eugene Field or Stephen Foster. oh lots of famous folks I'll find Who more than measure to my rating, And so thanksgivingly inclined Their birthdays I'll be celebrating. For Oh I know the cheery glow| Of Anniversary rejoicing; Let me reflect its radiance so My daily gladness I'll be voicing. And though I'm stooped and silver-haired, Let me with laughter make the hearth gay, So by the gods I may be spared Each year to hear: "Pop, Happy Birthday."

(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; That I may game of golf enjoy, And have a formidable drive: In short, that I'm a gay old boy Though I be Seventy-and-five. My daughter thinks. because I'm old (I'm not a crock, when all is said), I mustn't let my feet get cold, And should wear woollen socks in bed; A worsted night-cap too, forsooth! To humour her I won't contrive: A man is in his second youth When he is Seventy-and-five. At four-score years old age begins, And not till then, I warn my wife; At eighty I'll recant my sins, And live a staid and sober life. But meantime let me whoop it up, And tell the world that I'm alive: Fill to the brim the bubbly cup - Here's health to Seventy-and-five!

To end up alone in a tomb of a room without cigarettes or wine-- just a lightbulb and a potbelly, grayhaired, and glad to have the room. ...in the morning they're out there making money: judges, carpenters, plumbers, doctors, newsboys, policemen, barbers, carwashers, dentists, florists, waitresses, cooks, cabdrivers... and you turn over to your left side to get the sun on your back and out of your eyes. from "All's Normal Here" – 1985

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.

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.

You have read War and Peace. Now here is Sister Carrie, not up to Tolstoy; still it will second the real world: predictable planes and levels, pavement that holds you, stairs that lift you, ice that trips you, nights that begin after sunset, four lunar phases, a finite house. I give you Dreiser although (or because) I am no longer sure. Lately I have been walking into glass doors. Through the car windows, curbs disappear. On the highway, wrong turnoffs become irresistible, someone else is controlling the wheel. Sleepless nights pile up like a police record; all my friends are getting divorced. Language, my old comrade, deserts me; words are misused or forgotten, consonants fight each other between my upper and lower teeth. I write "fiend" for "friend" and "word" for "world", remember comes out with an "m" missing. I used to be able to find my way in the dark, sure of the furniture, but the town I lived in for years has pulled up its streets in my absence, disguised its buildings behind my back. My neighbor at dinner glances at his cuffs, his palms; he has memorized certain phrases, but does not speak my language. Suddenly I am aware no one at the table does. And so I give you Dreiser, his measure of certainty: a table that's oak all the way through, real and fragrant flowers, skirts from sheep and silkworms, no unknown fibers; a language as plain as money, a workable means of exchange; a world whose very meanness is solid, mud into mortar, and you are sure of what will injure you. I give you names like nails, walls that withstand your pounding, doors that are hard to open, but once they are open, admit you into rooms that breathe pure sun. I give you trees that lose their leaves, as you knew they would, and then come green again. I give you fruit preceded by flowers, Venus supreme in the sky, the miracle of always landing on your feet, even though the earth rotates on its axis. Start out with that, at least.

I, MY dear, was born to-day-- So all my jolly comrades say: They bring me music, wreaths, and mirth, And ask to celebrate my birth: Little, alas! my comrades know That I was born to pain and woe; To thy denial, to thy scorn, Better I had ne'er been born: I wish to die, even whilst I say-- 'I, my dear, was born to-day.' I, my dear, was born to-day: Shall I salute the rising ray, Well-spring of all my joy and woe? Clotilda, thou alone dost know. Shall the wreath surround my hair? Or shall the music please my ear? Shall I my comrades' mirth receive, And bless my birth, and wish to live? Then let me see great Venus chase Imperious anger from thy face; Then let me hear thee smiling say-- 'Thou, my dear, wert born to-day.'

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; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is come to me. Raise me a dais of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me.

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 the eye: it remained invalid and now has a cataract. It can see gods and spirits in its cloud, And the weird end of the world: the left one's for common daylight. As to my mother: A rather beautiful young woman married to a grim clergyman Twenty-two years older than she: She had her little innocent diversions, her little travels in Europe— And once for scandal kissed the Pope's ring— Perhaps her life was no emptier than other lives. Both parents Swim in my blood and distort my thought but the old man's welcome.

Thirty today, I saw The trees flare briefly like The candles on a cake, As the sun went down the sky, A momentary flash, Yet there was time to wish

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. You who have sounded William Blake, And the still pool, to Plato's mark, Blow out the candles of your cake. They will not leave you in the dark. Yet, for your friends' benighted sake, Detain your upward-flying spark; Get us that wish, though like the lark You whet your wings till dawn shall break: Blow out the candles of your cake.

Just past dawn, the sun stands with its heavy red head in a black stanchion of trees, waiting for someone to come with his bucket for the foamy white light, and then a long day in the pasture. I too spend my days grazing, feasting on every green moment till darkness calls, and with the others I walk away into the night, swinging the little tin bell of my name.

So let me have the rouge again, And comb my hair the curly way. The poor young men, the dear young men They'll all be here by noon today. And I shall wear the blue, I think- They beg to touch its rippled lace; Or do they love me best in pink, So sweetly flattering the face? And are you sure my eyes are bright, And is it true my cheek is clear? Young what's-his-name stayed half the night; He vows to cut his throat, poor dear! So bring my scarlet slippers, then, And fetch the powder-puff to me. The dear young men, the poor young men- They think I'm only seventy!

Today you are ten. But, with that Sly smile and Those knowing eyes, You are Going on twenty. That sparkle in Your blue eyes, That false pout, That mischievous Laugh and Kind spirit Make me glad You are My friend.

Sorry, I almost forgot, but I don't think Its worth the effort to become a Carcanet poet With my mug-shot on art gloss paper In your catalogue as big as Mont Blanc Easier to imagine, as Benjamin Peret did, A wind that would unscrew the mountain Or stars like apricot tarts strolling Aimlessly along the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

The years become you as Oxford becomes you, As you became Oxford through the protest years; From Magdalen’s grey gargoyles to its bridge in May, From the cement buttresses of Wellington Square To Balliol, Balliol in the rain. The years become you as the Abbey Road becomes you, As you became that road through silent years, From the famous crossing to the stunted bridge Caparisoned with carnivals of children, Cohorts of coloured clowns and Father Christmases. The years become you as the Clothworkers’ Hall in gold Became you, and you became it through the protest years, When the Brotherton’s Portland stone, its white stone Of innocence was snow in the School of English garden, ‘A living sculpture’, a Grene Knicht awaiting spring. The years become you, Oxford, Leeds and London, As you became them through the years of poems, Through passing, silent crowds, through the cherry blossom You sat under, plucked and ploughed, ‘a dissenting voice’, And Balliol, Balliol in the rain.

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 person who deserves the very best! © Faye Kilday 2000

clouds over Jakarta sky conceal the midnoon sun of my birthday

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 springs before the old Has run its course (but its course is never run), And each day adds its weight to the sum We bear on that date this day in June, To solidify with birthdays gone by In an endless, banquet bequest. Today we take time out to renew And revisit the mood of our youthful love. Tomorrow, with the same tremulous excitement As beset us when we danced on its eve ‘til dawn We will wed again. © I.D. Carswell June 13, 2002