A Birthday

Flowchart nodes

• A Birthday

• A celebration

• Celebration of Easter- rebirth, the end of waiting, resurrection

• Song- an allegory of the love and the relationship between: God and Israel, Christ and Church, Christ and the individual soul

• The Second Coming: Jeez-slice is gonna roll up in his gold Mercedez saying, "Holla babes!"

• Ultimately a new Kingdom will come and replace this junk- Jeez will lead, and there will be no more hunger, thirst or tears

• Language, tone and structure

• Repetition

• Each alternate line in the first verse begins 'My heart is like'

• 'Is come, my love has come to me'

• Emphasises 'come'- expression of joy that her lover has returned

• Metre

• First verse written in strict iambic tetrameter

• Song-like rhythm that stresses the word 'heart'

• In second verse, 4 out of 7 lines begin with a trochee

• Stress falls on the verbs 'raise', 'hang', 'carve', and 'work'

• Break out of metrical scheme of the first verse, so the trochees highlight the urgency of the speaker to create something new to celebrate the return of her love

• Imagery, Symbolism, Themes

• Nature

• Biblical

• 'a singing bird'

• Wordsworth- intention to create poetry like a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"

• The song is a natural part of her- an awakening, like Spring, whether a religious experience or not

• Nested upon a 'watered shoot'

• Fresh, but not as firm as a fully grown tree

• Image of fertility (young love, weak but lush)

• 'well watered'

• Baptism

• Old Testament Book of Isaiah

• "You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail"

• Apple tree

• Natural, different to the tempting Goblin Fruits

• All who will 'lay hold' of the tree of life 'will be blessed'- Proverbs 3;18

• Tree in the garden of Eden- the apple knowledge that cast Adam and Eve out

• 'Rainbow halcyon'

• Rainbow in the bible- fulfilment of God's promise

• Appearing when God helped Noah escape the flood- Genesis 19:3

• Narrator has promises fulfilled- the lover is her God?

• Halcyon comes from Greek myth of a bird, charmed the wind and waves.

• Associated with prosperity, joy, tranquility

• Use of halcyon shows deep comfort and rest narrator has found

• 'Her heart is gladder than all these'- the speaker indicates that descriptions of the natural world are incapable of fully expressing her exuberant emotional state