Hummingbird Poetry Series
“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”
Quote from Carl Sandburg. Series curated by Lynda Bernard.
Hummingbird’s Featured Poem
A Birthday
Christina Rossetti
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 hair 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.
Curator’s Note. Every time I read this poem, I smile (and sometimes get goosebumps). Its celebration of romantic love, of the pure joy of falling in love and knowing that love is returned, is irresistible. Enchanting, filled with exuberance and truly bringing the feeling of being in love to life, it is often recited at weddings.
