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Poetry · Poem

Song

Christina Georgina RossettiVictorian eraPoem
SOURCE TEXT · English original
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.
Cultural reading

Reading the poem

Speaking to a lover about their own death, the speaker asks for no sad songs, roses or cypress but only green grass wet with showers and dew, and imagines a twilight afterwards in which they may equally happen to remember or to forget.

Language notes

Text and edition

The English text follows the fixed historical witness in The Oxford Book of English Verse; no modern third-party translation is included.