
Have you ever reflected on the significance of each birthday as a milestone in your life?
Birthdays are not just a celebration of another year; they represent growth, change, and the beautiful journey we all undertake.
Here are 10 heartfelt birthday poems that capture the emotions tied to these special moments, reminding us of the joy and wisdom that come with aging.
Let’s get started!
My favorite birthday poem
#1 “A Birthday” by Christina Georgina Rossetti
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
“My heart is like a singing bird” resonates deeply with me as a top choice for birthday poems.
I love how the poet compares their heart to vibrant symbols of life and beauty, such as a singing bird and an apple tree laden with fruit.
These elements remind me of the richness of love and the joy it brings, especially on birthdays.
9 more birthday poems
#2 “A Birthday Trifle” by Henry Kendall
Here in this gold-green evening end,
While air is soft and sky is clear,
What tender message shall I send
To her I hold so dear?
What rose of song with breath like myrrh,
And leaf of dew and fair pure beams
Shall I select and give to her
The lady of my dreams?
Alas! the blossom I would take,
The song as sweet as Persian speech,
And carry for my lady’s sake,
Is not within my reach.
I have no perfect gift of words,
Or I would hasten now to send
A ballad full of tunes of birds
To please my lovely friend.
But this pure pleasure is my own,
That I have power to waft away
A hope as bright as heaven’s zone
On this her natal day.
May all her life be like the light
That softens down in spheres divine,
‘As lovely as a Lapland night,’
All grace and chastened shine!
#3 “On His Seventy-fifth Birthday” by Walter Savage Landor
I strove with none; for none was worth my strife,
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life,
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
#4 “The Birthday Wreath” by John Greenleaf Whittier
December 17, 1891.
Blossom and greenness, making all
The winter birthday tropical,
And the plain Quaker parlors gay,
Have gone from bracket, stand, and wall;
We saw them fade, and droop, and fall,
And laid them tenderly away.
White virgin lilies, mignonette,
Blown rose, and pink, and violet,
A breath of fragrance passing by;
Visions of beauty and decay,
Colors and shapes that could not stay,
The fairest, sweetest, first to die.
But still this rustic wreath of mine,
Of acorned oak and needled pine,
And lighter growths of forest lands,
Woven and wound with careful pains,
And tender thoughts, and prayers, remains,
As when it dropped from love’s dear hands.
And not unfitly garlanded,
Is he, who, country-born and bred,
Welcomes the sylvan ring which gives
A feeling of old summer days,
The wild delight of woodland ways,
The glory of the autumn leaves.
And, if the flowery meed of song
To other bards may well belong,
Be his, who from the farm-field spoke
A word for Freedom when her need
Was not of dulcimer and reed.
This Isthmian wreath of pine and oak
#5 “Birthday Verses” by Thomas Hood
Good morrow to the golden morning,
Good morrow to the world’s delight –
I’ve come to bless thy life’s beginning,
Since it makes my own so bright!
I have brought no roses, sweetest,
I could find no flowers, dear, –
It was when all sweets were over
Thou wert born to bless the year.
But I’ve brought thee jewels, dearest,
In thy bonny locks to shine, –
And if love shows in their glances,
They have learn’d that look of mine!
#6 “For Jane’s Birthday” by John Charles McNeill
If fate had held a careless knife
And clipped one line that drew,
Of all the myriad lines of life,
From Eden up to you;
If, in the wars and wastes of time,
One sire had met the sword,
One mother died before her prime
Or wed some other lord;
Or had some other age been blest,
Long past or yet to be,
And you had been the world’s sweet guest
Before or after me:
I wonder how this rose would seem,
Or yonder hillside cot;
For, dear, I cannot even dream
A world where you are not!
Thus heaven forfends that I shall drink
The gall that might have been,
If aught had broken a single link
Along the lists of men;
And heaven forgives me, whom it loves,
For feigning such distress:
My heart is happiest when it proves
Its depth of happiness.
Enough to see you where you are,
Radiant with maiden mirth!
To bless whatever blessed star
Presided o’er your birth,
That, on this immemorial morn,
When heaven was bending low,
The gods were kind and you were born
Twenty sweet years ago!
#7 “A Birthday-Wish” by George MacDonald
Who know thee, love: thy life be such
That, ere the year be o’er,
Each one who loves thee now so much,
Even God, may love thee more!
#8 “A Birthday Gift” by Robert Fuller Murray
No gift I bring but worship, and the love
Which all must bear to lovely souls and pure,
Those lights, that, when all else is dark, endure;
Stars in the night, to lift our eyes above;
To lift our eyes and hearts, and make us move
Less doubtful, though our journey be obscure,
Less fearful of its ending, being sure
That they watch over us, where’er we rove.
And though my gift itself have little worth,
Yet worth it gains from her to whom ’tis given,
As a weak flower gets colour from the sun.
Or rather, as when angels walk the earth,
All things they look on take the look of heaven–
For of those blessed angels thou art one.
#9 “Youth and Age” by W. B. Yeats
Much did I rage when young,
Being by the World oppressed,
But now with flattering tongue
It speeds the parting guest.
#10 “On My Birthday, July 21” by Matthew Prior
I, My dear, was born to-day
So all my jolly comrades say:
They bring me music, wreaths, and mirth,
And ask to celebrate my birth:
Little, alas! my comrades know
That I was born to pain and woe;
To thy denial, to thy scorn,
Better I had ne’er been born:
I wish to die, even whilst I say
‘I, my dear, was born to-day.’
I, my dear, was born to-day:
Shall I salute the rising ray,
Well-spring of all my joy and woe?
Clotilda, thou alone dost know.
Shall the wreath surround my hair?
Or shall the music please my ear?
Shall I my comrades’ mirth receive,
And bless my birth, and wish to live?
Then let me see great Venus chase
Imperious anger from thy face;
Then let me hear thee smiling say
‘Thou, my dear, wert born to-day.’