Birthday

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; Tomorrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New Year; Of all the glad New Year, mother, the maddest, merriest day; For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

 

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day.

 

And there could I marvel my birthday

When she introduces me to her parents back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie, should I sit knees together on their 3rd degree sofa and not ask Where’s the bathroom?

What ought to be done to the man who invented the celebrating of anniversaries? Mere killing would be too light.

It is better to be seventy years young than forty years old!

There could I marvel

They gave it me,—for an un-birthday present.