My Sister's Birthday!

Happy birthday, Rachel! Woo hoo! May you be 29 forever!

Here's something to mark the occasion, hopefully. I'm taking artistic license by changing one very key word... I hope Mr. Keats won't mind:


To My Brothers (Ed: Sister)

Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals,
And their faint cracklings o’er our silence creep
Like whispers of the household gods that keep
A gentle empire o’er fraternal souls.
And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles,
Your eyes are fix’d, as in poetic sleep,
Upon the lore so voluble and deep,
That aye at fall of night our care condoles.
This is your birth-day Rachel, and I rejoice
That thus it passes smoothly, quietly.
Many such eves of gently whisp’ring noise
May we together pass, and calmly try
What are this world’s true joys,—ere the great voice,
From its fair face, shall bid our spirits fly.

-- John Keats (Ed. TS)