A Poem to Read Out Loud: "A Birthday", by Christina Rossetti

A good poem for February, methinks:

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 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 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.

~Christina Rossetti