asks who I am

I am its bewildered spirit, disowned by time

I am, like it, in no place

We go on moving, and there is no end

We go on passing, and there is no abiding

And when we reach the bend

We think it the close of misery —

And then: open space!

And time asks who I am

Like it, I am a giantess, folding up ages

And returning to grant them resurrection

I create the distant past

From the charm of easeful hope

And I return and bury it myself

To fashion for myself a new yesterday

Whose tomorrow is ice.

*

And the self asks who I am

Like it, I am bewildered, staring into darkness

Nothing grants me peace

I go on asking, and the answer

Will remain hooded by a mirage

And still I think it has drawn near

But when I reach it, it has melted,

Died down, and gone.

That one was a poetess who was a poet's wife; this one is a poetess who is a poet's sister.

One of the most splendid poetesses of the English language (1830–1894). She is distinguished in two kinds of verse: the lyrical love poem and the spiritual. She spent the greater part of her life nursing her invalid mother, and this stood between her and giving herself over to literature; had she done so, she would have outshone her contemporaries. She was beautiful, and her brother Dante Rossetti took her as the model for the Virgin in his famous painting "The Girlhood of the Virgin Mary."

Remember me when I have gone away,

gone far, far away into the silent world,

when it is no longer in your power to take me by the hand,

nor in mine to turn and leave you

and still, for all my turning, remain standing...

Remember me when you will no longer tell me, day after day,

the story of our future as you have planned it.

Only remember me — you know

that counsel then will be of no use, nor prayer.

But if you must forget me for a while

and remember me afterward, do not grieve:

for if the darkness and corruption have left

a trace of the thoughts that once were mine,

it is far better that you forget and smile

than that you remember and be sad.

... Or Forget!

When I die, my beloved, do not chant songs of sorrow,

and do not cast roses near my head,

nor plant a shading cypress;

and if you will, remember me — and if you will, forget.

For I shall not see the shade, nor feel the rain,

nor listen to the nightingale singing sorrowfully,

and in the depths of my dreams I may remember — and I may forget.