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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  780. A Birthday

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

Christina Georgina Rossetti. 1830–1894

780. A Birthday

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 thick-set fruit; 
My heart is like a rainbow shell         5
  That paddles in a halcyon sea; 
My heart is gladder than all these, 
  Because my love is come to me. 
 
Raise me a daïs of silk and down; 
  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;  10
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  15
  Is come, my love is come to me.