Nothing like poetry and birthday cake...
My dad loves Yeats as much as I do, so I took a stanza or two from "The Wild Swans at Coole" and put it inside the pop-up card I made for him. Not my favorite poem but it has exquisite imagery and more importantly, it wasn't too apocalyptic for a birthday card! Here are the lines I picked:
Their hearts have not grown old; Passion or conquest, wander where they will, Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water Mysterious, beautiful; Among what rushes will they build, By what lake’s edge or pool Delight men’s eyes, when I awake some day To find they have flown away?
After I gave him my card and gift, Dad flipped right to my heavily annotated copy of "The Second Coming." The poem is easily one of my favorite poems and I'm also sentimental because the first time I studied it was with my favorite W&L English professor, standing in the breath taking landscape of Thoor Ballylee. Dad read it aloud while we were out to dinner. Great birthday :)