Category Archives: Birthdays

Happy Birthday William Butler Yeats

Happy Birthday

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

By William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

 

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

 

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

 

Happy Birthday William Shakespeare!

Today is William Shakespeare’s birthday.  The Bard of Avon, whose words expressed the joys and tragedies of humanity, our gratitude…

Happy Birthday!

“As an unperfect actor upon the stage
Who with much fear is put besides his part
Or some fierce thing, replete with too much rage
Whose strengths abundance weakens his own heart
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love’s rite
And in mine own love’s strength seem to decay
O’ercharged with burthen of my own love’s might
o, let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast
Who plead for love, and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath express’d.
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ
To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.”
William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Happy Birthday Edna St. Vincent Millay

Happy Birthday, Edna

“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.”

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Today, in 1892, Edna St. Vincent Millay rushed into this world.  Born in Rockland, Maine, her parents were Cora Lounella, a nurse, and Henry Tollman Millay, a school teacher.  She had two sisters, Norma and Kathleen.  Her mother divorced her father in 1904 for financial irresponsibility although they had been separated for several years.  Cora and her daughters moved from town to town, living in gentile poverty.   Everywhere they went, they carried with them a trunk full of classic literature including Shakespeare and Milton.

God’s World

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!

Thy mists, that roll and rise!

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with colour!   That gaunt crag

To crush!   To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

****

Long have I known a glory in it all,

But never knew I this;

Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear

Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;

My soul is all but out of me,—let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

A Toast to the Professor

The Pathway

Every year on January 3rd, Tolkien fans from around the world are invited to raise a glass and toast the birthday of this beloved author at 21:00 (9 pm) local time.

The toast is “The Professor.”

“Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Then world behind and home ahead,
We’ll wander back and home to bed.
Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
Away shall fade! Away shall fade!” 


― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring