To A.E.B

 To A.E.B.

    (For her birthday)

      (16 September)

To you, this Special Day, I write

My bouquet of love’s timeless flowers,

     Believing that you’ll cherish more

     My heart’s creation than a store

Of bursting blooms whose scented hours

Too soon are faded and forgot.

I have no eloquence to tell

How ardently I still adore:

     How my great love for you, (more bright

     Than comet blazing in the night),

Intensifies yet more and more:

How you enchant me by your spell!.

You are my comfort when I fall;

My lover and my darling wife.

     You are the mother of our boys;

     You my treasure and my joys:

My rock amid ambitions’ strife.

My precious Anne, you are my all!.