A Birthday
My heart is like a singing birdWhose nest is in a watered shoot;My heart is like an apple-treeWhose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;My heart is like a rainbow shellThat paddles in a halcyon sea;My heart is gladder than all theseBecause 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 lifeIs come, my love is come to me.
Words in this poem
- thickset a.
- Close planted; as, a thickset wood; a thickset hedge.
- gladder n.
- One who makes glad.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Birthday is in the public domain. This text is taken from Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #16950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Christina Rossetti, A Birthday, in Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rossetti-goblin-market/a-birthday.html, id L04248.
Form and metre
A Birthday is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 31% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -ABA-B-B bird · shootA · treeB · fruitA · shell · seaB · these · meB
- 2 -A-A---- down · dyesA · pomegranates · eyesA · grapes · lys · life · me
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My heart is like a singing bird | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Whose nest is in a watered shoot; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| My heart is like an apple-tree | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| My heart is like a rainbow shell | 8 | ·····/·· |
| That paddles in a halcyon sea; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| My heart is gladder than all these | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Because my love is come to me. | 8 | ········ |
| Raise me a dais of silk and down; | 8 | ········ |
| Hang it with vair and purple dyes; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Carve it in doves, and pomegranates, | 9 | ········· |
| And peacocks with a hundred eyes; | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| Work it in gold and silver grapes, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In leaves, and silver fleurs-de-lys; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Because the birthday of my life | 8 | ···/···· |
| Is come, my love is come to me. | 8 | ········ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.