I've been born, and once is enough.

Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.

I shall not want Honor in Heaven For I shall meet Sir Philip Sidney And have talk with Coriolanus And other heroes of that kidney.

And all shall be well and/ All manner of thing shall be well/ By the purification of the motive/ In the ground of our beseeching

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Trying to use words, and every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure Because one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling.

Today, you're halfway to 100! Here's to optimism, whether it is realistic or not. Happy 50th birthday!