Volume 10 35

it seems to her that love has brought new life, or
made her “reborn.”

Themes.

Love and Passion
“A Birthday” celebrates romantic love. The
speaker expresses the joy of falling in love and
knowing that she is loved in return. In the first
stanza the poet describes the private emotion of re-
alizing and recognizing love. The speaker seems to
be treasuring her feelings, perhaps not ready to
share them with the world. In the second stanza,
though, she demands a public celebration, with
elaborate decorations, of her happiness.

The poet begins by developing similes in
which the heart is compared to something in na-
ture. Each simile shows a different aspect of falling
in love. In the first, the speaker is jubilant and wants
to sing out. In the next simile (lines 3-4), her heart
is full, like a tree with ripe fruit. The third com-
parison is slightly more complex: the speaker’s
heart is a beautiful shell on a halcyon, or calm, sea,
as if she finds peace by being in love. However,
halcyon also means carefree, so the poet may be
showing that she no longer worries of whether or
not she is loved in return.

As beautiful as these images are, they are not
enough to express this feeling of love: the speaker
must share her feelings with the world. In the sec-
ond stanza the poet’s images come from works of
art, and the setting is public. Now love is honored
with lush materials—the purple of royalty, designs
in gold and silver. All of this decorative art com-
memorates the speaker’s new life, which is brought
on by love.

Nature and Its Meaning
Rossetti’s nature imagery ranges widely in this
short poem; she describes inanimate objects, plants,
and animals. All these images reveal the poet’s sen-
suous experience of the natural world. The singing
bird connotes (suggests) ecstasy, providing a pic-
ture of a bird opening its beak and trilling with
abandon. The images in lines two through four re-
late to growth and reproduction. The nest, the site
of eggs or just-born birds, sits on a young branch
of a tree that is watered and thus healthily grow-
ing. The apple tree is glutted with fruit, proof of its
fertility. These descriptions of the nest and trees
represent the happy development of love and im-
ply sexuality and reproduction that may be a part
of love. The love grows like plants and animals in

nature, and the lovers may experience ecstasy and

fruit, or children of their own. The nature of hu-

man love is portrayed as something as beautiful and

innocent as the seasonal rebirth that takes place in

the natural world.

With the image of the “rainbow shell,” the poet

turns to a quieter aspect of nature—and of love.

The shell is beautiful—many-colored, possibly

shining—and it moves in a gentle sea. Here the

inanimate object, which also represents the

speaker’s heart, “paddles” in the body of water,

which symbolizes love. After the singing and grow-

ing of the earlier lines, this image describes peace-

fulness.

At the end of the stanza, Rossetti includes hu-

man nature in this scenario. Despite the beauty and

joy of the natural world, the human speaker is more

fortunate than all the images meant to express her

joy. Love between people is a deeper emotion than

can be expressed even by natural images of rapture

and abundance.

Style.

Aesthetics

Rossetti reveals her aesthetic sense, or her per-

ception of what is beautiful, throughout this poem.

A Birthday

Topics for

Further

Study

• In a poem that has a distinct rhyme scheme, de-
  scribe what you think would be the best possi-
  ble celebration of your birthday?


• Read “Silent Noon,” which was written by the
  author’s brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti. What
  similar concerns do you see in the works of these
  two siblings? What is different in their styles?
  What is the same?


• What is the relationship between the nature im-
  agery in the first stanza and the imagery in the
  second? Are they to be considered opposites?
  Or part of the same thing?