Every bird that upwards swings
Bears the Cross upon its wings.
He is a fool who lets slip a bird in the hand for a bird in the bush.
Hear how the birds, on ev'ry blooming spray,
With joyous musick wake the dawning day!
A little bird told me.
That byrd ys nat honest
That fylythe hys owne nest.
The bird
That glads the night had cheer'd the listening
groves with sweet complainings.
BIRD OF PARADISE
Those golden birds that, in the spice-time, drop
About the gardens, drunk with that sweet food
Whose scent hath lur'd them o'er the summer flood;
And those that under Araby's soft sun
Build their high nests of budding cinnamon.
BIRTH; BIRTHDAY
He is born naked, and falls a whining at the first.
Esaw selleth his byrthright for a messe of potage.
Chapter heading of the Genevan version and
Matthew's Bible of Genesis XXV. (Not in
authorized version.)
| seealso = (See also Penn)
| topic =
| page = 70
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num = 10
| text = <poem>A birthday:—and now a day that rose
With much of hope, with meaning rife—
A thoughtful day from dawn to close:
The middle day of human life.
Jean Ingelow—A Birthday Walk.
And show me your nest with the young ones
in it,
I will not steal them away;
I am old! you may trust me, linnet, linnet—
I am seven times one to-day.
Jean Ingelow—Songs of Seven. Seven Times One.
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—Miscellanies. To a Lady on her
Birthday.
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.
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—My Birthday.
Lest, selling that noble inheritance for a poor
mess of perishing pottage, you never enter into
His eternal rest.
Penn—No Cross no Crown. Pt. II. Ch.XX.
Sec.XXIII.
Man alone at the very moment of his birth,
cast naked upon the naked earth, does she
abandon to cries and lamentations.
Pliny The Elder—Natural History.
Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear;
'Tis but the funeral of the former year.
The dew of thy birth is of the womb of the
morning.
"Do you know who made you?" "Nobody, as I knows on," said the child, with a short laugh. The idea appeared to amuse her considerably; for her eyes twinkled, and she added—
"I 'spect I growed. Don't think nobody never made me."
As some divinely gifted man,
Whose life in low estate began,
And on a simple village green;
Who breaks his birth's invidious bar.
When I was born I drew in the common air,
and fell upon the earth, which is of like nature,
and the first voice which I uttered was crying,
as all others do.
