Still celebrating my birth month, so decided to post this favorite. Despite it's rhyming, I've enjoyed reading this Christina Rosetti poem over the years.
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 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 daïs 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.
I still love the concept of ...vair. It's just not one of those things that sticks, and every year, I have to look it up: Wait, what did that mean again?
ReplyDeleteAh, yes. Red squirrel fur. Thanks, Christina.
(oh, all RIGHT. Yes. I was being awful. The heraldry vair is just interlocking patterns like blue and white shields representing fur. Still. I like the first OED definition better. I should remember this one every time from A Proud Taste for Miniver and Scarlet but do I? No. *sigh*)
ReplyDeleteIt makes me snicker now that I've had personal interactions with the eastern squirrels. I would happily hang their little furry selves about.
ReplyDelete