Birthday

POSTED IN classic poetry January 17, 2013

My heart is like a singing bird

                  Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;

    My heart is like an apple-tree

                  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.

Christina Rossetti