A Birthday

Christina 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.