When I am Dead, My Dearest by Christina Rossetti

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As with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti (1834-1894), along with her work, is fairly well-known.  It's interesting to consider that, although she's sometimes thought of as a quintessentially proper English poet, she actually grew up in an immigrant household.  Additionally, although Christianity was the normative spirituality of the time period, this poem could be read as describing death as a finite end, without any sort of spiritual endurance. 

 

For more on Christina Rossetti, please visit her biography at the Poetry Foundation website.

When I am Dead, My Dearest by Christina Rossetti