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 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.
Enjoy the poem with beautiful music.
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Who wrote the poem "A Birthday"?
Christina Rossetti (December 5, 1830 ~ December 29, 1894)
Christina Rossetti was an English poet who was lauded as one of the foremost female poets of the 19th-century Victorian era. She wrote romantic, devotional, and children's poems, marked by symbolism and intense feeling. Her literary status was often compared to that of Elizabeth Barren Browning, and upon Browning's death in 1861, Rossetti was hailed as Browning's rightful successor. She opposed slavery, cruelty to animals, and the exploitation of girls in under-age prostitution. Rossetti suffered from Graves' disease in the later decades of her life. In 1893, she was diagnosed of breast cancer and died of a recurrence in 1894.
"A Birthday" explanation
In the poem, the speaker expresses her
excitement and joy for the birthday of her “life.” It is one of the poet’s most
popular poems and today is often used in greeting cards and wedding invitations.
There can also be religious interpretations given the poet’s devout faith in
Christianity. “Life” here can mean various things: her beloved, the Easter, the
arrival of spring, or ‘The Second Coming of Christ.’
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