A Birthday

My heart is like a singing bird 
Whose nest is in a watered 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.

Christina Rossetti

Goblin Market and Other Poems

1862, ed. MacMillan &Co, Londres

desenho de Júlio Resende