Birthday Sonnet

Borne on and one by time’s returnless wave,
     Sheer by the banks of Childhood, flower emboss’d
     Now am I swept down Manhood’s rugged coast;
Two half score years and two, have found their grave,
And I am still the boy I have been, save
     Something perchance, of the heart’s freshness lost,
     Something of hope nip’d early, by the frost
Of sorrow, yet repaid by strength to brave
Winds adverse. If in these stern days of storm,
     When Good and Ill in desperate war engage,
I have not hurled the chariot of Reform
     Onward, yet not in vain their pupilage;
Nerving the mind to mock surrounding fates
And hurtless ride the blast its own strong wing creates.