Why - can anybody say? -
Has upon my natal day
Nothing ever taken place
Of importance to the race?

Why has no one great or glorious,
Famous, or at least notorious -
Author, actor, or highwayman,
Poet, prophet, priest or layman,
Ever chosen to appear
Then on this sublunary sphere?

Battles have been lost or won,
Kingdoms fallen, reigns begun,
People been decapitated,
Shipwrecked, crowned, assassinated,
Every day, it seems, but one -
One by fickle fame passed by,
No one's anniversary,
One round which no splendours cluster
Such as shed a borrowed luster
On the birthdays of my friends . . .
Only - 'Partridge Shooting Ends.'