RPO -- Christina Rossetti : When I am dead, my dearest

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

When I am dead, my dearest

1When I am dead, my dearest,

2 Sing no sad songs for me;

3Plant thou no roses at my head,

4 Nor shady cypress tree:

5Be the green grass above me

6 With showers and dewdrops wet;

7And if thou wilt, remember,

8 And if thou wilt, forget.

9I shall not see the shadows,

10 I shall not feel the rain;

11I shall not hear the nightingale

12 Sing on, as if in pain:

13And dreaming through the twilight

14 That doth not rise nor set,

15Haply I may remember,

16 And haply may forget.

Notes

1] Christina's brother and editor, William Michael Rossetti, commented: "This celebrated lyric ... has perhaps been oftener quoted, and certainly oftener set to music, than anything else by Christina Rossetti."

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market and other Poems (Cambridge: Macmillan, 1862). end R673 G63 1862 Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto). Text from Christina Rossetti, Poems (1890).
First publication date: 1862
RPO poem editor: Margaret Frances (Sister St. Francis) Nims
RP edition: 3RP 3.300.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/14

Composition date: December 1848
Rhyme: abcbdefe

Other poems by Christina Rossetti