The Saturday poem in July - love and laughter
Todays poem is in both categories I think - it is a love poem and hopefully it will raise a smile in some readers .
It is by Jonathan Swift,far better known as the writer of Gulliver's Travels and for his other prose satire than as a poet.
However he could cope with the different genre pretty well as you will see. This is one of a series of poems he wrote for his friend Esther Johnson on her birthday between 1719 and the year she died in 1727.
A short comment today and no picture as I Am in a hotel with intermittent Wifi. Under the cut for Stella's Birthday
Stella's Birthday
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
It is by Jonathan Swift,far better known as the writer of Gulliver's Travels and for his other prose satire than as a poet.
However he could cope with the different genre pretty well as you will see. This is one of a series of poems he wrote for his friend Esther Johnson on her birthday between 1719 and the year she died in 1727.
A short comment today and no picture as I Am in a hotel with intermittent Wifi. Under the cut for Stella's Birthday
Stella's Birthday
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