My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
Mein Herz ist wie ein Apfelbaum
Mit Ästen hangend von Früchten schwer.
Christina Rossetti
Now is the prime time to pick apples. Everywhere I go, I see apple-laden branches. As the apple season begins, I already baked cinnamon apple muffins. While I am writing this, I am sipping a glass of hot apple juice with cinnamon.
In this poem, Rossetti compare her joyful heart to many wonderful things: a singing bird, an apple tree, rainbow shell. But nothing can compare to the gladness when her love come to her in person. As the title called “A Birthday”, to her, this would be the best birthday’s gift.
Generally, in Rossetti’s writing, regardless of topic, her religious views were manifesting everywhere because she was a devout Christian. Some people also analyzing this poem religiously, “A Birthday” as the second coming of Jesus Christ.
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.
A Birthday
by Christina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti (1830 – 1894) was truly a wonderful English poet. She wrote the lyric for the beloved Christmas carol “In the Bleak Midwinter”. Her children’s poem as well as devotional proses are very fine.
Music for today is “October” composed by Fanny Hensel.
Buy me a cup of coffee? Or a glass of hot apple juice with cinnamon?
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