Shakespeare.    

Shakespeare.    

Shakespeare.    

Shakespeare.    

	Oh! be thou blest with all that Heaven can send,
	Long health, long youth, long pleasure—and a friend.

Pope.    

	Pleas’d to look forward, pleas’d to look behind,
	And count each birthday with a grateful mind.

Pope.    

	The day
	For whose returns, and many, all these pray;
	And so do I.

B. Jonson.    

Simms.    

	Is that a birthday? ’tis, alas! too clear;
	’Tis but the funeral of the former year.

Pope.    

	Yet all I’ve learnt from hours rife
	With painful brooding here,
	Is, that amid this mortal strife,
	The lapse of every year
	But takes away a hope from life,
	And adds to death a fear.

Hoffman.    

	My birthday!—what a different sound
	That word had in my youthful ears;
	And how each time the day comes round,
	Less and less white its mark appears.

Moore.    

	Believing hear, what you deserve to hear,
	Your birthday as my own to me is dear.
	Blest and distinguish’d days! which we should prize
	The first, the kindest bounty of the skies.
	But yours gives most; for mine did only lend
	Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend.

Martial.    

	As this auspicious day began the race
	Of ev’ry virtue join’d with ev’ry grace;
	May you, who own them, welcome its return,
	Till excellence, like yours, again is born.
	The years we wish, will half your charms impair;
	The years we wish the better half will spare;
	The victims of your eyes will bleed no more,
	But all the beauties of your mind adore.

Jeffrey.