Christina Rossetti · first published 1862
When I Am Dead, My Dearest
Meaning, complete text, stanza guide, vocabulary, techniques and an explained quiz.
What the poem means
The speaker removes conventional duties of mourning and imagines death as a state in which remembering and forgetting may no longer matter.
The first stanza asks for no sad songs, roses or cypress; the second enters a dim, dreamlike condition beyond rain, shadow and conscious sensation. “Haply” leaves both memory and forgetting possible, making the calm ending uncertain rather than doctrinal.
The poem
Spelling and punctuation follow the checked source edition. Stanza links connect the text to the guide and quiz.
Stanza 1. 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.
Stanza 2. 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.
Stanza guide
Stanzas 1–2
The poem balances paired alternatives—sing or be silent, remember or forget—without insisting on one response. Natural growth may continue above the grave, but the dead speaker imagines no demand on the living and no firm claim about awareness after death.
Return to stanza 1 ↑Vocabulary
- cypress
- an evergreen tree traditionally associated with mourning
- haply
- perhaps or by chance
- twilight
- the dim light between day and night
Literary techniques
Negative imperative
“Sing no sad songs” and “Plant thou no roses”
Refusal strips mourning of public convention and pressure.
Parallelism
“I shall not see” / “I shall not feel”
Balanced clauses create a steady movement away from sensation.
Ambiguity
“haply” governs remembering and forgetting
The poem ends in possibility rather than certainty about death or memory.
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