A Birthday

Christina Georgina Rossetti

     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.

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