I’m posting this in honor of St. Brigid of Ireland, whose feast day is February 1. I think she would have liked this poem, and would know it to be about her love for Christ.

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 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

*vair: A fur, probably squirrel, much used in medieval times to line and trim robes.