A Ninth Birthday

I.     Three times thrice hath winter's rough white wing     Crossed and curdled wells and streams with ice     Since his birth whose praises love would sing     Three times thrice.     Earth nor sea bears flower nor pearl of price     Fit to crown the forehead of my king,     Honey meet to please him, balm, nor spice.     Love can think of nought but love to bring     Fit to serve or do him sacrifice     Ere his eyes have looked upon the spring     Three times thrice. II.     Three times thrice the world has fallen on slumber,     Shone and waned and withered in a trice,     Frost has fettered Thames and Tyne and Humber     Three times thrice,     Fogs have swoln too thick for steel to slice,     Cloud and mud have soiled with grime and umber     Earth and heaven, defaced as souls with vice,     Winds have risen to wreck, snows fallen to cumber,     Ships and chariots, trapped like rats or mice,     Since my king first smiled, whose years now number     Three times thrice. III.     Three times thrice, in wine of song full-flowing,     Pledge, my heart, the child whose eyes suffice,     Once beheld, to set thy joy-bells going     Three times thrice.     Not the lands of palm and date and rice     Glow more bright when summer leaves them glowing,     Laugh more light when suns and winds entice.     Noon and eve and midnight and cock-crowing,     Child whose love makes life as paradise,     Love should sound your praise with clarions blowing     Three times thrice.