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: