happy birthday, happy birthday

ONE:
Are you happy now,
Birthday? are you happy?
You, with your pagan
cakes and candles,
and only you have
granted for yourself
the wish of life: Everyday
you are reborn;
Your rituals are followed
so faithfully and with
each song, with every
gift, you are given new life;
So now you are ageless.
You are universal.
You are god of our time.
How you must mock
to see us grow old.


TWO:
Birthday. Are you happy
today? People celebrate
you, not people, not
Life, as they should.
The joys of birth,
the simple naivety of
childhood, the glory
for our youth, the
humbling of mid-age,
the golden year's charm–
these have you have
taken with little of
our notice. Birthday,
how you have stolen!
And to think
you're just a number:
A date. An age...
hardly ever reaching a
hundred. How small you
really are, how abstract.


THREE:
Then you might complain,
what unjust accusations
these are! I have given
you happiness, anticipation,
excitement. I have given
a way to love. How rich
I have made you! But look,
Birthday, see what they
have become: It is now
the awkwardness of
standing in the middle
of your witch circle;
It is plastic happiness
in false smiles and
kind pretensions;
It is the sadness of being
forgotten. What causes of
joy are these? And,
despite all this, we are
still so blind as to sing:
Happy Birthday, to you

To you, Happy Birthday

Birthday, to you, happy

Happy to you, Birthday


         It is not a line.
         It is not a love.


FOUR:
So, Birthday, are you happy now?