When I am dead, my dearest
When I am dead, my dearest
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).
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." Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1862
RPO poem Editors
Margaret Frances (Sister St. Francis) Nims
RPO Edition
3RP 3.300.
Rhyme