Everything
could have been quite different, and still she'd have felt happy.
Her feeling, mysteriously, was as much from things INSIDE her as
from things outside.
After dinner was over and the baby minded for an hour, mother made
the pink-brocaded sash. It was very lovely. Then she had an hour to
herself, and since the rain wouldn't permit her to spend it in the
summerhouse, she took a book up to her own room. It was a book of
poems from the Public Library.
The first poem she opened to was one of the most marvellous things
she had ever read--almost as wonderful as "The Blessed Damozel." She
was glad she had chanced upon it on a rainy day, and when she felt
like this. It was called "A Birthday," and it went:
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 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 with doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred
eyes; Work in it 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.
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