1. When I am dead, my dearest,
2. Sing no sad songs for me;
3. Plant thou no roses at my head,
4. Nor shady cypress tree:
5. Be the green grass above me
6. With showers and dewdrops wet;
7. And if thou wilt, remember,
8. And if thou wilt, forget.
9. I shall not see the shadows,
10. I shall not feel the rain;
11. I shall not hear the nightingale
12. Sing on, as if in pain:
13. And dreaming through the twilight
14. That doth not rise nor set,
15. Haply I may remember,
16. And haply may forget.
1. Original Text: Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market and other Poems (Cambridge: Macmillan, 1862). end R673 G63 1862 Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto). Text from Christina Rossetti, Poems (1890).
2. First Publication Date: 1862.
3. Composition Date: Dec. 1848
4. Christina's brother and editor, William Michael Rossetti, commented: "This celebrated lyric ... has perhaps been oftener quoted, and certainly oftener set to music, than anything else by Christina Rossetti."