A Birthday,
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 thick-set 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 on 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.

composition date: November 1857

The Accessible Christina:
The Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti
in Etext, Audio and Braille Formats

Online Editions

• A selection of Christina Rossetti's Works in plain etext from the Victorian Web
• the complete text of Goblin Market
• Selected Poetry of Christina Rossetti from the University of Toronto's Representative Poetry On-line Project
• Christina Georgina Rossetti's contributions to The Germ, printed under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyn

Braille and Audio

• BR 02656 J821 Doves and Pomegranates: Seventy Poems for Young Readers, Chosen by David Powell. (Grade 2 braille; NLS)
• BR 01581 J821 Goblin Market (braille; NLS)
• NLC 005467762 Selected Poems of Christina Rossetti. (braille; CNIB)
• BRA07015 J398 Sing-Song, A Nursery Rhyme Book for Children. (Grade 2 braille; NLS)
• BR 01700 821 Selected Poems of Christina Rossetti. Edited with an introduction by Marya Zaturenska. (Grade 2 braille; NLS)
  
  
• Ct-BPH (CTC5412) Battiscombe, Georgina. Christina Rossetti, A Divided Life. (Elizabeth Paine, narrator; Connecticut State Library)

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