On This Day (Birthday Sonnet 2) Poem by Christopher McInnes

Dear Joe I hope that when in years to come
you look back on this day, the memory
it brings will be so sweet that you succumb
to joy as great as that you bring to me.
Nineteen! The last year of your gilded youth,
the laurels lying green and fresh around
your blissful, carefree temple, for in truth
the years trip lightly by the newly crowned,
and spring eternal gladly lifts your soul
to that divine, ecstatic paradise
of music, which delights and makes us whole,
enraptured by sweet songs beyond all price.
Sing on, O Prince of gorgeousness, sing on,
until the cares of our old time be gone.