Song of the Day - 28th October

Today is my birthday! 21 again, natch 😀

Mark this day, for in years (or decades, or centuries) to come, when I am dead and famous, people will say "In honour of Julie Cavanagh, who would have been however many years old today, we play her beloved setting of 'To My Daughter on her Birthday'!"

Well, a girl can dream, can't she??

"To My Daughter on her Birthday" was written by Thomas Hood, an English poet, author and humorist, best known for poems such as "The Bridge of Sighs" and "The Song of the Shirt". Hood wrote regularly for The London Magazine, Athenaeum, and Punch. He later published a magazine largely consisting of his own works. Hood, never robust, had lapsed into invalidism by the age of 41 and died at the age of 45. He wrote this poem for his daughter Frances for her ninth birthday, in 1839. He was to die only 6 years later.

I have annotated the score so that, with a little judicious jiggery-pokery with the rhythm and notes, the song can be sung to anyone of any age.

Get the music for this song for free - find out how here.

To My Daughter On Her Birthday

By Thomas Hood

Dear Fanny! nine long years ago,

While yet the morning sun was low,

And rosy with the Eastern glow

The landscape smiled -

Whilst lowed the newly-waken'd herds -

Sweet as the early song of birds,

I heard those first, delightful words,

"Thou hast a Child!"

Along with that uprising dew

Tears glisten'd in my eyes, though few,

To hail a dawning quite as new

To me, as Time:

It was not sorrow - not annoy -

But like a happy maid, though coy,

With grief-like welcome even Joy

Forestalls its prime.

So mayst thou live, dear! many years,

In all the bliss that life endears,

Not without smiles, nor yet from tears

Too strictly kept:

When first thy infant littleness

I folded in my fond caress,

The greatest proof of happiness

Was this - I wept.