By Christina Georgina 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.