I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white.
The violets, and the lily-cups
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs, where the robin built,
And where my brother set,
The laburnum on his birthday -
The tree is living yet. [ Hood ]

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 ]

Heaven give you many, many merry days! [ William Shakespeare ]

And more such days as these to us befall! [ William Shakespeare ]

And send him many years of sunshine days! [ William Shakespeare ]

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

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

As this auspicious day began the race
Of every virtue join'd with every 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 ]

Pleas'd to look forward, pleas'd to look behind,
And count each birthday with a grateful mind. [ Pope ]

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 ]

The birth of a child is the imprisonment of a soul. [ Simms ]

Oh! he thou blest with all that Heaven can send.
Long health, long youth, long pleasure - and a friend. [ Pope ]

This day shall change all griefs and quarrels into love. [ Shakespeare ]

This day which thou fearest so much, and which thou callest thy last, is the birthday of an eternity. [ Seneca ]

It's a long stretch between that first birthday speech and this one. That was my cradle-song; and this is my swan-song, I suppose. I am used to swan-songs; I have sung them several times. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]

This is my seventieth birthday, and I wonder if you all rise to the size of that proposition, realizing all the significance of that phrase, seventieth birthday. The seventieth birthday! It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity; when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you for a generation and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your seven-terraced summit and look down and teach--unrebuked. You can tell the world how you got there. It is what they all do. You shall never get tired of telling by what delicate arts and deep moralities you climbed up to that great place. You will explain the process and dwell on the particulars with senile rapture. I have been anxious to explain my own system this long time, and now at last I have the right. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]