Song When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet: And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget. I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain; I shall not hear the nightingale Sing on as if in pain: And dreaming through the twilight That doth not rise nor set, Haply I may remember, And haply may forget.
1862[26]
In her later decades, Rossetti suffered from a type of hyperthyroidism – Graves' disease – diagnosed in 1872, suffering a near-fatal attack in the early 1870s.[1][3] In 1893, she developed breast cancer. The tumour was removed, but there was a recurrence in September 1893.
Christina Rossetti died in great pain and anguish of cancer on 29 December 1893 and was buried on 2 January 1894 in the family grave on the west side of Highgate Cemetery, which, notoriously had been opened in October 1869 so that Gabriel could retrieve a volume of poems he had buried with his wife.[17][24][27] There she joined her father, mother and Elizabeth Siddal, wife of her brother Dante Gabriel. Her brother William was also buried there in 1919, as were the ashes of four subsequent family members.
There is a stone tablet on the façade of 30 Torrington Square, Bloomsbury, marking her final home, where she died.[28]
