| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | I. To Bayard Taylor | | By Richard Henry Stoddard (1825–1903) |
| | On His Fortieth Birthday 1
“WHOM the gods love die young,” we have been told, | |
| And wise of some the saying seems to be; | |
| Of others foolish; as it is of thee, | |
| Who proven hast, “Whom the gods love live old.” | |
| For have not forty seasons o’er thee rolled, | 5 |
| The worst propitious,—setting like the sea | |
| Towards the haven of prosperity, | |
| Now full in sight, so fair the wind doth hold? | |
| Hast thou not fame, the poet’s chief desire; | |
| A wife, whom thou dost love, who loves thee well; | 10 |
| A child, in whom your differing natures blend; | |
| And friends, troops of them, who respect,—admire? | |
| (How deeply one, it suits not now to tell;) | |
| Such lives are long, and have a perfect end. | |
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