Christina Rossetti

Dec 5, 1830 - Dec 29, 1894

 

A Birthday

by Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an appletree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves, and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

Source:

Goblin Market and Other Poems
Copyright 1865
Macmillan And Co.London and Cambridge