Valentine's Day will be here soon and nothing says romance more than love poems. All love poems lay bare an essential part of the human condition - the need to love and be loved in return. To celebrate one of the most romantic days of the year, I have a book of love poems to give away.
Back in November the WA Poets Inc. released the 2016 Poetry d'Amour anthology of love poems and it includes one of my poems.
All you have to do to own a copy is subscribe to this blog page (over there on the right), and on Valentine's Day I will draw the name from the list and that person will win a copy of Poetry d'Amour 2016.
Back in November the WA Poets Inc. released the 2016 Poetry d'Amour anthology of love poems and it includes one of my poems.
All you have to do to own a copy is subscribe to this blog page (over there on the right), and on Valentine's Day I will draw the name from the list and that person will win a copy of Poetry d'Amour 2016.
I also thought I'd share some of my favourite love poems each day leading up to Valentine's Day and share some thoughts about why I enjoy them. I'd love to read your thoughts on the poems via the comments below.
A Birthday
By 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 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.
(Christina Rossetti Selected Poems - Bloomsbury Poetry Classic 1992)
A Birthday is a fitting start to sharing some of my favourite love poems. Despite its title, this poem was on the back of our wedding booklets because the happiness it expresses with the phrase 'my love has come to me.' The use of similes in the first stanza seem like the writer is having trouble finding the words to express her happiness, which was how I felt on the day.
The second stanza requests a royal platform to celebrate on (viar, purple, gold and silver grapes, and fleurs-de-lys...) which is an interesting contrast to the nature filled imagery in the first stanza. The language, while joyful, is soft and contained within the regular rhyme scheme in each stanza, and the (mostly) iambic tetrameter rhythm.
What do you think of A Birthday?
A Birthday
By 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 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.
(Christina Rossetti Selected Poems - Bloomsbury Poetry Classic 1992)
A Birthday is a fitting start to sharing some of my favourite love poems. Despite its title, this poem was on the back of our wedding booklets because the happiness it expresses with the phrase 'my love has come to me.' The use of similes in the first stanza seem like the writer is having trouble finding the words to express her happiness, which was how I felt on the day.
The second stanza requests a royal platform to celebrate on (viar, purple, gold and silver grapes, and fleurs-de-lys...) which is an interesting contrast to the nature filled imagery in the first stanza. The language, while joyful, is soft and contained within the regular rhyme scheme in each stanza, and the (mostly) iambic tetrameter rhythm.
What do you think of A Birthday?