Awake thou dormant mental fire
My vagrant Muse again inspire
With Fancy’s happiest lay
Away on swift poetic wing
And from Parnassus hither bring
Oblations for this day.
O day — thou record of my bliss
Source of my wedded happiness
To thee I’ll tribute pay
Come Fancy with thy magic train
With new creation fill my brain
To celebrate this day.
Yet not to thy romantic power
Can be ascribed the blissful hour
Which now inspires my lay
Fancy may paint, but truth alone
Can show in character her own
The joys that mark this day.
No treacherous words with specious sense
Combin’d with flattery’s vile incense
Does hallowed Truth display
Her I invoke, to aid my verse
To sanction what I now rehearse
On this dear natal day.
May happy years unnumber’d pass
E’er from Time’s monumental glass
This day is lost forever
When that’s ordained may the decree
With its stern summons wait on me
Then we no more shall sever.
E.C.