remember

remember
-christina rosetti

remember me when i am gone away,
gone far away into the silent land
when you can no more hold me by the hand
nor i half turn to go, yet turning stay.
remember me when no more day by day
you tell me of our future that you planned:
only remember me; you understand
it will be too late to counsel then or pray.
yet if you should forget me for a while
and afterwards remember, do not grieve:
for if the darkness and corruption leave
a vestige of the thoughts that i once had,
better by far you should forget and smile
than that you should remember and be sad



i hear funeral poems day in and day out and i am so sick of some of them, but i have never heard this one, my favourite on a funeral. i just love those final lines, "better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad"
mark my words, that is what i would want
but it won't be for a long time yet!!!