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.
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