A BIRTHDAY

Christina Georgina Rossetti  1830-94

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.

 *vair = fur obtained from a variety of red squirrel, used in the 13th and 14th centuries as a trimming or lining for garments.

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