Randle, Rhiannon: Like a Singing Bird


Like a Singing Bird (2015)

(My heart…)
My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell in a halcyon sea;
But my heart is gladder than all of these…

My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart…

Raise me a dais of silk and down (because);
Hang it with vair and purple dyes (my love has come!);
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, is come to me.

Words: adapted from Christina Rossetti’s A Birthday
Music: Rhiannon Randle (b. 1993)