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I saw a son weep o’er a mother’s grave:

“Ay, weep, poor boy—weep thy most bitter tears

That thou shalt smile so soon. We bury Love,

Forgetfulness grows over it like grass;

That is the thing to weep for, not the dead.”

Alexander Smith (A Boy’s Poem)

UNTIL DEATH

If thou canst love another, be it so.

I would not reach out of my quiet grave

To bind thy heart, if it should choose to go.

Love shall not be a slave....

It would not make me sleep more peacefully,

That thou wert waiting all thy life in woe

For my poor sake. What love thou hast for me

Bestow it ere I go....

Forget me when I die. The violets

Above my rest will blossom just as blue

Nor miss thy tears—E’en Nature’s self forgets—

But while I live be true.

F. A. Westbury.

These verses are by a South Australian writer. “Forget me when I die” is an unpleasing sentiment; yet in “When I am dead, my dearest,” Christina Rossetti says:

If thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

As regards the latter poem, the curious fact is that it is read as an exquisite piece of music, and not for any poetic thought it contains. If it has any coherent meaning, it is that the speaker is indifferent whether or not “her dearest” will remember her or she will remember him. Yet the haunting music of the lines has made it a favourite poem, and it finds a place in all the leading anthologies. Christina Rossetti is by no means a great poet. (Mr. Gosse’s estimate in the Britannica is exaggerated), but she had a wonderful gift of language and metre. Take, for example, the pretty lilt contained in the simplest words in “Maiden-Song”: