Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern.

Today is January 24th, 2020. And the poem that I'm going to read to you today is by Christina Rosetti.

She was an English poet who lived from 1830 to 1894. She died December 29, 1894. And I meant to read some of her poetry at the end of December,

but that was when I was doing it with being sick and missed a week or so of shows,

and so I didn't get to it, and I wanted to come back and read this poem.

She is, of course, very well known for writing poems that became Christmas carols like

in the bleak midwinter.

And the poem that I'm going to read to you today is called Birthday.

It is from her first collection of poetry from 1862 called Goblin Market and other poems.

And it goes like this.

My heart is like a singing bird whose nest is in a watered shoot.

My heart is like an apple tree whose bows 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 has come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down, hang it with verre and purple dyes, carved it in doves and

pomegranates and peacocks with a hundred eyes.

Work it in gold and silver grapes, in leaves in silver, floridly, because the birthday of my life is come.

My love is come to me.

So, not a very long poem, and I often find myself reading sort of melancholy poems, and I suppose, particularly I find myself reading melancholy

poems on this podcast at this time of year in the middle of winter. So I thought, let's do a poem

that is a little bit less melancholy. Now maybe if you want to think about the fact that

Christina Rose-edding never got married, this poem is melancholy. But in and of itself, at least on the

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