✨ A Birthday

the birthday of my life...

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 
  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;
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.

—Christina Rossetti

This poem is offered in honor of Every Day Poems’ 12th birthday! Today, May 5, 2023.

“A Birthday” is in the public domain. Photo by Ali Kokab, Creative Commons, via Unsplash.