Song

Question 1

dead

Answer 1

“When I am dead, my dearest”

firm minded speaker - poem beginning abruptly. tone is warm and loving. unseen listener

Question 2

sing

Answer 2

“sing no sad songs for me”

The narrator rejects the showy, sentimental funerals - popular - Victorian era. alliterative ’s’s, monosyllables and elongated vowels slow the pace of this line, as if mimicking the sad singing referred to.

Question 3

roses

Answer 3

“Plant thou no roses at my head”

“Such red cheeks like apples and roses.” - Nora to Ms Linde

love

Question 4

wilt

Answer 4

“And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.”

syntactic parallels - speaker states alternatives. expresses binary opposites

Question 5

shall

Answer 5

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale

anaphora, syntatic parallels, repeated reference to natural world

Question 6

pain

Answer 6

“sing on, as if in pain”

the verb ‘sing on’ + adverbial phrase, ‘as if in pain’. the first reference to grief, but with the conditional ‘as if’. The speaker refuses to countenance the idea of people grieving for her.

Question 7

twilight

Answer 7

“And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,”

state of suspension, purgatory - Catholic, neither day or night, dead or alive

Question 8

haply

Answer 8

“Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.”

neatly concluded w syntactic parallels, leaves reader in state of uncertainty, strangely satisfactory acceptance