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 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.