Yabbai

                 Christina 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.