A Birthday

Christina Georgina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a watered shoot;

My heart is like an apple tree

Whose boughs are bent with thickest 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 fleur-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love is come to me.