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Birthday: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

White-Throat. The happy white-throat on the swaying bough, Rocked by the impulse of the gadding wind That ushers in the showers of April, now Carols right joyously; and now reclined, Crouching, she clings close to her moving seat, To keep her hold.— CLARE — The Rural Muse. Poems.

The Happy Bird. Wren. But then as little wrens, but newly fledge, First by their nests hop up and down the hedge; Then one from bough to bough gets up a tree.— BROWNE — Britannia's Pastorals. Bk. 1. Sc. 4.

And then the wren gan scippen and to daunce.— CHAUCER — Court of Love. L. 1372.

I took the wren's nest ;- Heaven forgive me! Its merry architects so small Had scarcely finished their wee hall, That, empty still, and neat and fair, Hung idly in the summer air.— D. M. MULOCK — The Wren's Nest.

For the poor wren, The most diminutive of birds, will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.— Shakespeare — Macbeth. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 9.

Thus the fable tells us, that the wren mounted as high as the eagle, by getting upon his back. 0. Tatler. No. 224. Among the dwellings framed by birds In field or forest with nice care, Is none that with the little wren's In snugness may compare.— WORDSWORTH — A Wren's Nest.

Yellow-Bird. Yellow-bird, where did you learn that song, Perched on the trellis where grape-vines clamber, In and out fluttering, all day long, With your golden breast bedropped with amber?— CELIA THAXTER — Yellow-Bird.

My birthday!-"How many years ago? Twenty or thirty?" Don't ask me! "Forty or fifty?"-How can I tell? I do not remember my birth, you see!— JULIA C. R. DORR — My Birthday.

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. C.— JEFFREY — Miscellanies. To a Lady on

her Birthday. This is my birthday, and a happier one was never mine.— LONGFELLOW — The Divine Tragedy. The Second Passover. Pt. II.

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 — Epigrams. Bk. IX. Ep. 53.

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.

Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear; 'Tis but the funeral of the former year.— POPE — TO Mrs. M. B. L. 9.