Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/996

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CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

790 A Birthday

MY heart is like a singing bird  Whose nest is in a watcr'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.


Song

WHEN I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me, Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet; And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the ram; I shall not hear the nightingale Sing on, as if in pain;
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