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Song

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A classic Gentle Non-religious Plain English Stoic

Song

Christina Rossetti · 1862

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.

Public domain in the UK and the US · serany.app

What Serany thinks about this poem

A classic Gentle Non-religious Plain English Stoic

Background

Rossetti wrote it at eighteen and published it in 1862, in the same book as "Remember".

Meaning

She doesn't want a fuss. No sad songs, no roses on the grave, just grass growing over her. Remember her or don't, whichever is easier for you.

Who's it for

Someone who hated fuss and wouldn't have wanted a big do. Right where the family want something plain and completely unsentimental.

Photograph by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Public domain.

Christina Rossetti

British · 1830 – 1894

Christina Rossetti grew up in a London house full of painters and poets, and her brother Dante Gabriel drew her more than once. She wrote most of her best-known work before she was twenty-five, and died in 1894.

More about Christina Rossetti →

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

More about this poem →

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