When I am dead, my dearest

Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti’s poem “When I am dead, my dearest” is among four songs published in 1862 in Rossetti’s first collection of verse, “Goblin Market and Other Poems”.

Christina Georgina Rossetti was born on 5 December 1830 in London, England, and she died on 29 December 1894 in London, England, at the age of 64.

Rossetti was an English writer of romantic, devotional and children’s poems, including “Goblin Market” and “Remember”. She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Britain: “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “Love Came Down at Christmas”. She was a sister of the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti and features in several of his paintings.

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Posted: 5 September 2023
Word length: 87
Video length: 1:47

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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