“A Birthday” Summary

• My heart sings like a bird nesting in a young branch nourished by water. My heart is like an apple tree whose branches are heavy with lots of fruit. My heart is like a rainbow-colored shell gently floating about on calm, beautiful waters. Actually, my heart is even happier than all of these things because my love is here.

  Build me a platform for a throne out of silk and fine feathers. Drape it with fine, bluish-black fur and purple fabric. Carve it with ornate decorations of doves, pomegranates, and peacocks with feathers that look like they're covered in hundreds of eyes; add images of gold and silver grapes, leaves, and fleur-de-lys (a symbol used by French royalty). Because today is the day my life really begins, now that my love is here.

“A Birthday” Themes

• 

  The Joy of Love

  Christina Rosetti's "A Birthday" captures the giddy joy of love. The title refers not to the speaker's literal birthday, but rather to a day on which the speaker feels reborn. Life truly begins, in this poem, when love arrives.

  The speaker celebrates the rush, wonder, and excitement of love by comparing their heart to a range of pleasant things: "a singing bird" in its nest, "an apple-tree" laden with fruit, and a "rainbow shell" bobbing about on a tranquil sea. Each of these similes connotes peace, comfort, and fulfillment. The bird is safe and secure (perhaps a vision of domestic intimacy), the tree is heavy with tasty apples (perhaps a nod to reproduction, or at least plenitude), and the shell is simply having a nice time floating about in calm, sunny waters. Being in love, these similes suggest, is utterly delightful.

  In fact, the speaker's heart "is gladder than all these" things now that love has arrived. "My love is come to me," the speaker says, making this the "birthday of [the speaker's] life." Love is so powerful that the speaker effectively gets born again, becoming a newer, happier, more complete version of themselves.

  The speaker then issues a series of instructions to pay tribute to this love. The speaker wants a raised platform (for a throne) to be made of "silk and down," decorated with the finest carvings of "doves and pomegranates, / And peacocks with a hundred eyes." It should be lined with gold and silver in the finest style. These items symbolize the spiritual and emotional wealth of love, a kind of inner richness that nothing else can match. This metaphorical birthday deserves a lush party fit for royalty; only the best will do!

  Note that this love doesn't have to be read as romantic. It's also possible that the speaker is talking about love of God, or even the birth of a child. What's clear is that love is a life-giving force.

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.
• 

  Faith and Spiritual Fulfillment

  The love in "A Birthday" isn't necessarily romantic in nature. Read in the context of Rosetti's deep Christian faith, "A Birthday" might also be interpreted as a hymn of praise that anticipates Jesus's return to earth. The speaker's "birthday," in this reading, refers to an occasion of spiritual revelation and fulfillment. (Indeed, some of Rossetti's other work, such as "From House to Home," refers to the Second Coming—that is, the day of Christ's return—as a birthday.)

  The speaker's "heart" is in a state of pure rapture. The poem tries to capture this feeling, but no comparison will quite do—perhaps because nothing can truly compare to Christ's homecoming. Not a "singing bird," an apple tree in bloom, nor a beautiful "rainbow shell" can match the happiness of the speaker's heart upon reuniting with God.

  The poem is filled with Christian imagery that supports the idea that the speaker's beloved is God. For example, the apple tree might be an allusion to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden; a rainbow is a sign of the covenant between God and the earth in the biblical story of Noah. The imagery of the second stanza is even more explicitly religious in nature:

  • When the speaker demands that a beautiful, ornate dais be made, this special platform might be meant for the throne of the "king" that is Christ himself.
  • Purple is the color of royalty (again nodding to the idea of Christ as king), and images of pomegranates decorate priestly garments in the Book of Exodus.
  • A dove appears to Noah as a symbol of peace and deliverance after the flood.
  • Peacocks are an ancient Christian symbol of eternal life, and the many "eyes" on their feathers represent God's omniscience.
  • Finally, the fleurs-de-lys often represents purity and/or the Holy Trinity.

  All of these images hint that the speaker is celebrating a spiritual union with God. Christ's return is the "birthday" of the speaker's life, the day their life really begins.

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “A Birthday”

• Lines 1-4

  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;

  "A Birthday" celebrates love's arrival. What specific type of love is open to interpretation; it sounds like the speaker is celebrating romantic love, but the poem might just as well be praising the birth of a child or the love of God. Whatever specific form this love takes, it has completely transformed the speaker's world.

  In these opening lines, the speaker compares their heart to various delightful things in order to illustrate how happy they are. First, they declare, "My heart is like a singing bird / Whose nest is in a water'd shoot." In other words, the speaker is as delighted and content as a bird twittering away in the safety of its nest.

  The nest sounds like it's in a good spot too, resting "in a water'd shoot." A shoot refers to a young branch, something freshly grown, thanks to that nearby "water[]." In addition to simply conveying the speaker's joy, then, this simile evokes the speaker's rebirth: the speaker is "water'd" by love. The image of a nest might also symbolize home and domestic intimacy—things the speaker perhaps feels they've finally found in their beloved.

  Lines 3 and 4 then follow the same structure as lines 1-2, creating anaphora and parallelism as the speaker uses another simile to convey their feelings:

  My heart is like an apple-tree
  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

  The repetitive nature of the language creates a sense of abundance, as though the speaker's heart is so happy that they could think of any number of similarly happy things (or, perhaps, that no simile is quite right; nothing can really capture the bliss the speaker feels!).

  This time, the speaker compares their heart to an apple tree with branches so heavy with fruit that they're "bent." It's simply bursting with fruit, just as the speaker's heart is bursting with joy. The image of "thickset fruit" suggests plenitude and might even call to mind reproduction (i.e., being fruitful). The bold alliteration of "boughs"/"bent" evokes the sheer weight of those branches, loaded up with apples ripe for the picking.

  "A Birthday" is written in iambic tetrameter, meaning each line contains four iambs: poetic feet that follow an unstressed-stressed pattern. Here are lines 1-2 as an example:

  My heart | is like | a sing-| ing bird
  Whose nest | is in | a wa- | ter'd shoot;

  The gentle pulse of those iambs creates a confident, soothing rhythm.

• Lines 5-8

  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.

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-14

  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;

  

  

  

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• Lines 15-16

  Because the birthday of my life
  Is come, my love is come to me.

  

  

  

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“A Birthday” Symbols

• 

  Christian Imagery

  "A Birthday" is filled with religious imagery hinting the speaker's "love" is, in fact, God. Some of these images are more explicitly symbolic than others. The first stanza's images might simply exemplify the speaker's joy and contentment, but they also might subtly allude to the Bible:

  • The apple tree perhaps brings to mind the Garden of Eden and suggests a return to "paradise."
  • The "rainbow shell" might be a nod to the "rainbow" that appears after the flood in the story of Noah's Ark as a sign of God's covenant—or pact—with humankind. The rainbow becomes a symbol of God's presence in human life.

  The images in the second stanza are more overtly religious:

  • For one thing, a "dais" is often the platform for a throne. This ties in with the Christian idea of the "Kingdom of God"; in a religious reading of the poem, Christ is the king who will sit on this throne. Building on this idea, the speaker calls for this "dais" to be decked out with items and sumptuous fabrics traditionally linked with royalty. Silver and gold are precious metals, purple is a royal color, and the "fleur-de-lys" is associated with French heraldry (it's also sometimes taken as a symbol of the Holy Trinity).
  • Doves once again evoke the story of Noah's Ark: Noah sends a dove out to determine if the flood waters have receded, and the bird returns with an olive branch. The dove is thus a symbol of salvation and deliverance—things that the speaker's faith in God offers.
  • Peacocks are an ancient symbol of eternal life, and the "eyes" on their feathers sometimes represent God's omniscience—that is, God's ability to see everything.

  Readers certainly don't have to interpret these images through a Christian lens to make sense of the poem; in a secular reading, these images simply signify the emotional value of the speaker's love. Still, there are clear religious undertones throughout "A Birthday" that suggest that the speaker's new lease on life stems from their faith.

  • See where this symbol appears in the poem.
• 

  Nature

  In the poem's first stanza, the speaker compares their "heart" to various images taken from the natural world: a bird singing in its nest, a tree laden with apples, and a colorful shell floating on gentle waters. Beyond simply illustrating the speaker's immense joy, all this natural imagery symbolizes the idea that love itself is something natural. Love, to the speaker, isn't a superfluous part of life. Love is as natural as a bird in its nest or fruit in a tree—and it's as necessary as water. Indeed, these natural images further reflect the nourishing, life-giving power of love:

  • The bird builds its nest in a "water'd shoot." A "shoot" is a young branch—something, like the speaker's "life," that's newly born. Just as that bit of fresh life is nourished by nearby water, the speaker's heart is metaphorically "water'd" by love.
  • The tree so thick with fruit that its branches sag suggests procreation, again reflecting the idea that love leads to new life—and, perhaps, that there's nothing shameful about physical intimacy.
  • A delicate shell is free to enjoy itself in those calm, gentle waters. The speaker's heart is likewise delicate—perhaps even prone to breaking—but their love provides the peace and security to simply relax.

  Interestingly, in the second stanza, the speaker calls for this "dais" to be carved with natural images: "doves and pomegranates," "peacocks," "gold and silver grapes," and "leaves." These are immortal versions of the items in the first stanza, perhaps symbolizing the idea that, unlike nature itself, love is everlasting.

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“A Birthday” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Euphony

  "A Birthday" creates euphony through a mixture of sonic devices (alliteration, consonance, and assonance), a steady iambic meter, and a predictable rhyme scheme. This is a poem that simply sounds pleasant, and that's no coincidence! The poem's rich music makes its imagery striking and vivid, in turn relaying the intensity of the speaker's delight. The poet

  Take the first stanza, which features:

  • assonance of the /ah/, /ee/, and /uh/ sounds ("paddles," "halcyon," "gladder"; "sea," "these," me"; "Because," "love," "come");
  • lilting /l/ consonance ("paddles," "halcyon," gladder," love," etc. );
  • resonant /d/, /m/, and /th/ consonance ("paddles," "gladder"; "than," "these"; "come," me");
  • and soft siblance ("singing," "nest," "shoot," "halcyon," "sea," "shell," etc.).

  In sum, the stanza sounds gentle, pleasant, and positively lovely. Some of these moments of sonic play specifically bring to life the image at hand, as with the alliteration of "boughs are bent": here, heavy /b/ sounds evoke the way those branches sag under the weight of ripe, delicious fruit. Similarly, the sibilance of "halcyon sea" suggests the gentle, swishing motion of those peaceful waters.

  The second stanza is even more jam-packed with euphonic sounds. There's:

  • resonant /d/ alliteration ("dais," "down," "dyes," "doves");
  • buzzing /v/ consonance ("vair," "Carve," "silver," "leaves");
  • crisp /p/ alliteration ("purple," "pomegranates," "peacocks") and consonance ("purple," "grapes");
  • firm /g/ alliteration ("gold," "grapes");
  • fluid /l/ consonance ("gold," "silver," "leaves," "fleur-de-lys");
  • and rhythmic /ay/, /ee/, /i/, and /uh/ assonance ("Raise," "dais," Hang"; "leaves," "fleur-de-lys"; "my life," "Because," "love," "come").

  The lines are positively decked out in pleasant sounds, seeming as elaborately ornamented as that "dais" itself.

  • See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

• Imagery

  

  

  

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• Parallelism

  

  

  

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• Simile

  

  

  

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“A Birthday” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Water'd shoot
• Boughs
• Thickset
• Halcyon
• Dais
• Down
• Vair
• Fleurs-de-lys

• A shoot here refers to a young branch—something that, like the speaker, has been recently "born." This shoot is water'd" (a contraction simply meant to communicate that "watered" should be pronounced with two syllables), or nourished by water. Likewise, the speaker is nourished by love.

  • See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “A Birthday”

• Form

  "A Birthday" contains two octaves, or eight-line stanzas. The poem divides neatly in half: the first octave focuses on the speaker's "heart" while the second concentrates on the "dais," or the throne platform the speaker wants erected to celebrate their love. The poem also uses a steady meter (specifically, iambic tetrameter) and rhyme scheme. Altogether, "A Birthday" sounds like the speaker is firmly in control.

  One might also consider "A Birthday" an example of occasional verse—that is, poetry written to commemorate a particular occasion. The event in question isn't an actual birthday but the speaker's re-birth thanks to their newly arrived "love."

• Meter

  "A Birthday" is written in iambic tetrameter. An iamb is a poetic foot consisting of two syllables arranged in an unstressed-stressed pattern (da-DUM); tetrameter simply means there are four of these iambs per line. Here's how that meter sounds in the poem's first four lines:

  My heart | is like | a sing- | ing bird
  Whose nest | is in | a wat- | er'd shoot;
  My heart | is like | an ap- | ple-tree
  Whose boughs | are bent | with thick- | set fruit;

  This iambic meter fills the poem with a confident march. It propels the poem forward, its steadiness helping to convey the speaker's newfound sense of purpose and completion now that "love is come."

  The speaker plays with the meter in the poem's second half, however, while issuing instructions as to how the "dais" raised in honor of their love should look. Lines 9-11 and 13 swap iambs for trochees (whose syllables follow a stressed-unstressed pattern) in their first feet:

  Raise me | a dais | of silk | and down;
  Hang it | with vair | and purp-| le dyes;
  Carve it | in doves | and pom- | egranates,
  [...]
  Work it | in gold | and sil-| ver grapes,

  All those front-loaded stressed beats reflect the strength and urgency of the speaker's commands. The speaker knows exactly what they want, and they want it now!

• Rhyme Scheme

  At first, each four-line chunk "A Birthday" appears to follow the rhyme scheme of a ballad: ABCB. Lines 2 and 4 rhyme with each other ("shoot"/"fruit"), as do lines 6 and 8 ("sea"/"me"). This familiar pattern, common in Victorian poetry, adds to the poem's overall euphony—its steady, pleasant music.

  Look more closely, however, and one will notice that the rhyme scheme is actually a little less straightforward than it first appears. That's because the second half of each octave repeats rhyme sounds from the first: "sea" and "me" (the "B" rhymes above) also rhyme with "tree" (the "C" rhyme)—and they form a slant rhyme with "these" (the "F" rhyme)! As such, the rhyme scheme technically runs: ABCBDCEC. (Including the slant rhyme, it would be: ABCBDCCC.)

  The second stanza works similarly. Again, the general pattern here is ABCB: the first and fourth lines of the stanza rhyme ("dyes"/"eyes"), as do the sixth and eighth ("-lys"/"me"; the "s" in "lys" is silent). The second half again repeats rhyme sounds, as "life" forms a slant rhyme with "dyes"/"eyes." And, of course, "me" in line 16 echoes "me" in line 8.

  The effect of all these "extra" rhymes is that the poem sounds even more emphatically musical. It's as though the speaker simply can't contain their delight.

“A Birthday” Speaker

• The speaker is someone who is absolutely delighted by the arrival of their "love." They try to articulate their joy in a series of similes comparing their "heart" to different happy, contented parts of nature, but no comparison will do; their "heart is gladder than all these."

  Understandably, the speaker wants to celebrate the arrival of this love. They demand that a "dais"—a platform fit for a throne—be built and ornately decorated. The speaker isn't insisting on a literal platform; rather, these commands illustrate how much they value their love, the arrival of whom signifies "the birthday of [the speaker's] life." In other words, the speaker's life has only truly begun now that their "love is come."

  The poem never tells readers anything about the speaker's identity, nor does it even specify what kind of "love" this is. It could certainly be romantic, but it could also refer to the birth of a child, whose arrival fills the speaker's heart to bursting. Or, given poet Christina Rossetti's deep Christian faith, this "love" could be God: Christ is the king for whom that ornate "dais" is being built.

“A Birthday” Setting

• "A Birthday" is set on "the birthday of [the speaker's] life." This isn't a birthday with cards, cake, and candles, however. Instead, this is a figurative birthday: a day on which the speaker feels reborn, like they've become a totally new person and their life has finally begun. That's all thanks to the fact that "love" has arrived.

  Depending on how readers interpret that "love," the poem's setting perhaps becomes more specific:

  • It might take place shortly after the speaker has met the love of their life or gotten married.
  • It might take place after the birth of the speaker's child (whose literal birthday sparks the speaker's metaphorical one).
  • Or, given that much of the poem's imagery can be interpreted through a distinctly Christian lens, this birthday could relate to the Second Coming: Jesus's return to establish God's kingdom on earth.

Literary and Historical Context of “A Birthday”

Literary Context

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) was one of the most important poets of the Victorian era. A popular writer of strange and fantastical verse, Rossetti contributed to a growing 19th-century vogue for fairy tales and old romances. This poem first appeared in her 1862 collection Goblin Market and Other Poems, the title poem of which tells the tale of two sisters' sinister adventures in fairyland.

Rossetti was associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an artistic movement dedicated to recapturing the beauty of a (much-mythologized and romanticized) Middle Ages. Her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a founder of the group, was also an accomplished painter, poet, and wombat enthusiast. Rossetti was also influenced by Elizabeth Barrett Browning—another popular female poet with strong ties to Italy—and some of her contemporaries saw her as the older poet's natural successor.

In some ways, "A Birthday" is a mysterious poem. Does the celebrated "love" relate to romance, or is the speaker talking about communion with God? Another of Rossetti's poems, "From House to Home," directly calls the Second Coming (the return of Jesus to earth) a "birthday." But even Rossetti didn't necessarily know what makes her speaker so happy! She once said about the poem, "I have more than once been asked whether I could account for the outburst of exuberant joy in this celebrated lyric; I am unable to do so."

Historical Context

Christina Rossetti lived in a world marked both by revolutionary change and reactionary conservatism. The Victorians were innovators and empire-builders, and England reshaped itself considerably under the reign of Victoria, its first truly powerful queen since Elizabeth I. A primarily rural population made an unprecedented shift to the cities as factory work outpaced farm work, and writers from Dickens to Hardy worried about the human effects of this kind of change.

Perhaps in response to this speedy reconfiguration of the world, Victorian social culture became deeply conservative. Women were expected to adhere to a strict code of sexual morals: a woman must be chaste, pliant, and submissive, and any deviation could mean social exile. But within this repressive landscape, women writers began to flourish, asserting the complexity and meaningfulness of their own lives. Rossetti's work was part of a tide of bold and moving poetry and fiction by Victorian women; Charlotte and Emily Brontë and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are only a few of the writers whose work achieved contemporary recognition against the odds.

Additionally, the Rossetti family was swept up in the Oxford Movement, a mid-19th-century revival of Catholicism in Britain that sought to restore older Christian traditions. Many of its prominent practitioners, known as Tractarians, were poets, such as John Henry Newman and John Keble. Rossetti was deeply religious and her faith played a major role in her poetry.

More “A Birthday” Resources

• External Resources

  • Rossetti's Portraits — See images of Rossetti throughout her life.

  • The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of "A Birthday" by James Earl Jones. 

  • A Brief Biography — Learn more about Christina Rossetti through the Poetry Foundation.

  • Goblin Market and Other Poems — Take a look at an early edition of the collection in which "A Birthday" first appeared.

  • In Our Time: Christina Rossetti — A 45-minute podcast episode in which literary scholars discuss Rossetti's life and work for BBC Radio 4.

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