A Birthday
by CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (1830-1894)
Read by Leonard Wilson for LibrivoxMy 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.
Youngest child of an Italian father, Gabriele, and Italian/English mother, Frances (Polidori), Christina was born on December 5, 1830 in London, England, where she would spend most of her life. continued |
Christina Rossetti Contemporaries
Emily Dickinson
William Allingham
Lewis Carroll
Ethel Lynn Beers
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