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Poetry · Poem

A Birthday

Christina Georgina RossettiVictorian eraPoem
SOURCE TEXT · English original
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.
Cultural reading

Reading the poem

The speaker likens a heart at the coming of love to a singing bird, a fruit-laden apple tree and a rainbow shell on a calm sea, then calls for a dais worked in silk, gold, doves and pomegranates because this day is the birthday of a life.

Language notes

Text and edition

The English text follows the fixed historical witness in The Oxford Book of English Verse; no modern third-party translation is included.