Christina Rossetti’s poem The Birthday or My Heart is Like a Singing Bird was published in 1857 and was the subject of at least a dozen musical settings before Hubert Parry. Parry had developed the habit by this point of memorizing a text and ‘cogitating’ on it before beginning composition.In this song Parry employs rippling semiquaver movement in both hands to establish the ecstatic nature of the piece which he only pauses at the climactic ‘Because my love is come to me’ most effectively. It remains one of his best-loved songs.
