Speaking of today...it happens to be my daughter's birthday and her name happens to be Melissa.
I've always been fond of the name, and knew it meant "honeybee", but I never knew it had such a rich, mythological background...one which reaches back even before Ancient Greece! I found a ton of info on Wikipedia, of course, including this lovely old poem...an ode to Melissa's birthday by Thomas Blacklock, a Scottish poet from the late 1700s.
This one's for you, Sweet Melissa! XOXO
ODE, ON MELISSA'S BIRTH-DAY
"Ye nymphs and swains, whom love inspiresWith all his pure and faithful fires,
Hither with joyful steps repair;
You who his tenderest transports share
For lo ! in beauty's gayest pride,
Summer expands her bosom wide ;
The Sun no more in clouds inshrin'd,
Darts all his glories unconfin'd;
The feather'd choir from every spray
Salute Melissa's natal day.
Hither ye nymphs and shepherds haste,
Each with a flow'ry chaplet grac'd,
With transport while the shades resound,
And Nature spreads her charms around;
While ev'ry breeze exhales perfumes,
And Bion his mute pipe resumes;
With Bion long disus'd to play,
Salute Melissa's natal day.
For Bion long deplor'd his pain
Thro' woods and devious wilds in vain;
At last impell'd by deep despair,
The swain preferr'd his ardent pray'r;
His ardent pray'r Melissa heard,
And every latent sorrow cheer'd,
His days with social rapture blest,
And sooth'd each anxious care to rest.
Tune, shepherds, tune the festive lay,
And hail Melissa's natal day.
With Nature's incense to the skies
Let all your fervid wishes rise,
That Heav'n and Earth may join to shed
Their choicest blessings on her head;
That years protracted, as they flow,
May pleasures more sublime bestow ;
While by succeeding years surpast,
The happiest still may be the last;
And thus each circling Sun display,
A mere auspicious natal day."
