Perhaps her thoughts were troubling to the person left behind - maybe she said she didn't believe in heaven, or thought she was doomed to hell, or something similar, which would cause a person with different beliefs pain when thinking of her being departed and not in heaven, or in being departed and merely being worm food (if she didn't believe in an afterlife at all), or perhaps she's referring to something else entirely that she'd said that had given the loved one pain. It says "If the darkness and corruption leave/ a vestige of the thoughts that once I had,/ better by far you should forget and smile/ than that you should remember and be sad." Where this becomes ambiguous is that we don't know what thoughts Rossetti is referring to. I like that Rossetti simply wants to be remembered from time to time, but not to give pain to her loved one with that memory: "Better by far your should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad."Īlthough, the precursor for that closing sentiment is a bit ambiguous, and I rather suspect that Rossetti was addressing particular thoughts or ideas she held and had expressed to her loved one. Than that you should remember and be sad.įorm: An Italianate sonnet written in iambic pentameter, and rhymed ABBAABBACDDECE.ĭiscussion: I like this so much better than Mary Frye's "Do not stand at my grave and weep" - I can't even tell you.
You tell me of our future that you planned:Ī vestige of the thoughts that once I had,īetter by far you should forget and smile
When you can no more hold me by the hand, In any case, this poem reminds me in many ways of one of Rossetti's sonnets, which I'm posting here as well: To me, this is the reading of the poem on its face, which I find fascinating because Rossetti has a reputation as a devout Anglican, who refused to see one of Wagner's operas because it was based in paganism and gave up chess because winning gave her too much pleasure. She goes on to indicate that she believes in some sort of immortality of the soul with the phrase "And dreaming through the twilight/that doth not rise nor set", but it appears she does not hold out hopes of heaven or belief in hell, and is uncertain what sort of consciousness her own soul will have - maybe it will remember her loved one, maybe not. The even-numbered lines are all in iambic trimeter (taDUM taDUM taDUM).Īnalysis: Rossetti gives her loved one permission to remember or forget her once she's dead, and acknowledges that she will no longer be aware of what transpires in the world once she is buried. The third line of each stanza is in iambic tetrameter (four iambs per line - taDUM taDUM taDUM taDUM). The first, fifth and seventh line of each stanza is compose of two iambs and an amphibrach (taDUM taDUM taDUMta, or i-AMB i-AMB am-PHI-brach). And the Poe poem called to mind for me some of the poems of Christina Rossetti, which are from the perspective of the dead or dying person in the relationship.įorm: It's a form of hymn metre, with alternating longer and shorter lines.
The bonus poem, Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, contemplates aging and death (in a way), but I opted to go back to Poe before moving on today. KellyrfinemanYesterday's selection, Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe, was about love surviving death, told from the point of view of the survivor.
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