Trixie Cruz: Two Poems of Death

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), sister of the artist Dante Gabriel Rosetti, was a Victorian poet whose themes of death are widely quoted. I selected these two for their message that the dead too feel the pain of separation that the living suffer, and it is this awareness that make the departed want only to be forgotten.

When I am Dead

When I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree.

Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,

I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on as if in pain.

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you planned:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad

To know more about Trixie Cruz Angeles, check out: I AM TRIXIE CRUZ