On Stella’s Birthday

By Jonathan Swift

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 declined;

Made up so largely in thy mind.

O, 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.

"Loveliest of trees, the cherry now..." By A. E. Housman (1859-1936) Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again,

And take from seventy springs a score,

It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.