Birthday

A celebration of love as a kind of rebirth, "A Birthday" pulses with sensuous imagery that makes the reader feel the speaker's heart beating out of her chest. Christina Rossetti, the great Victorian poet behind "Goblin Market," wrote this as an anthem of romantic joy, comparing the speaker's heart to a ripe fruit, a singing bird, and a throne waiting for its monarch. The poem unfolds through a cascade of opulent metaphors, silk and ermine and chime at sunrise, all pointing toward the same electrifying truth: love has arrived. This is not quiet affection. It is a seismic event. The speaker's entire being becomes a palace prepared for this feeling, every fiber tuned to celebration. It is one of the most passionate poems in the English language, written by a woman who understood that love, when it comes, feels less like a gentle emotion and more like a coronation. For readers who believe poetry should make them feel something visceral, this is essential.