Both poets write about death in an attempt to deal with their thoughts, feelings, and experiences associated with it. Rossetti too had to deal with the idea of death. In 1871 she contracted Graves’ disease, an illness which would bring her on the verge of death. It transformed her mentally and physically “… her hair fell out, her skin discoloured, and her eyes bulged.” (Marsh,397) Her life-threatening illness resulted in a reflection of her life so far. She was acutely sensitive to life’s inevitable disappointments and losses, as well as her own fulfilment. In a disquietingly large number of poems she longs for death so intensely that she thinks of death as a blessed oblivion rather than a blessed gateway.
“Rest, rest; the troubled breast
Panteth evermore for rest
Be it sleep or be it death
Rest is all it coveteth.”
Death hovers above all of Christina Rossetti’s works. She wrote poetry that features the point of view of the deathbed. In “After Death” Rossetti paints a rather bitter, almost vindictive portrait of the view of a deathbed:
“He leaned above me thinking that I slept
And could not hear him; but I heard him say
“Poor Child, poor child:” and as he turned away
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept…
He did not love me living; but once dead
He pitied me; and very sweet it is
To know he is still warm tho’ I am cold
This passage echoes a notion of lost youth and missed opportunity, something which is prevalent in much of Rossetti’s poetry, such as in “The Prince's Progress” and in “Spring.” The “he” in the poem did neither appreciate nor love the speaker whilst alive, but wept once she was gone. The last line of the stanza reflects an ironic bitterness.
Similarly, Hardy also uses the imagery of the deathbed. I think this is strongly portrayed in “Her Death and After,” where Hardy describes his experience and emotions connected to the death of his wife. During the poem he describes himself at her bed:
“She took my hand in her thin white own
And smiled her thanks- though nigh to weak…”
By placing himself at his wife’s deathbed he is trying to come to terms with her death, wondering why he could not always be there. It shows his feelings of guilt and insecurity with death:
“I thought of a man who had left her lone
him who had made her his own
when I loved her, long before.”
It is interesting to see that love and death are closely linked during the poems of both Rossetti and Hardy. Rossetti fell in love twice during her life. However at the height of her love for Collinson, her first love, she wrote some of her most poignant lines on the imminence and the pathos of death. It was her idea that love turned unavoidably to the idea of death. Two of her most famous poems come from this time, and in each Christina is obsessed by thoughts of death. In “Remember” she asks her beloved to remember her when she is dead, because that is all that he would be able to do for her. Then she assures him that even this is not necessary, and all that she asks him that he is not unhappy.
“Yet if you should forget me for awhile
And afterwards remember, do not grieve;
For the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that I once had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Then that you should remember and be sad.”
This idea is followed closely in the wonderful poem “Song” which seems almost like a counterpart to the sonnet above. Again she reflects on death, “…I shall not see the shadows/I shall not feel the rain/I shall not hear the nightingale…” and the key theme of remembrance is raised: “Haply I may remember/And haply I may forget.” In this poem Rossetti foresees what death will mean to her and wonders perhaps that she also will forget the past.
Thomas Hardy’s poem, “Ah, Are you digging on my grave?” stands as an excellent example of the poet’s feelings towards life and death. In this work, as in some of his other poetry, such as in ‘An upbraiding:’ “Now I am dead you come to me,” the dead still has a voice. In this poem it is evident that Hardy believes that romantic love is the first casualty of a woman’s death. The woman’s call, repeated in the title of the poem, first reaches out to the man who was her beloved. The reply she receives is not from this man as he wed another woman. As the digger says the beloved felt that “It cannot hurt her now…that I should not be true.” Not only has the beloved forgotten his dead loved one, as any attention he would pay towards the deceased could never be returned, he may of found someone even ‘greater.’ Throughout the duration of the poem she addresses different people to discover who is digging at her grave. She craves respect even after her death. When she discovers that it is mans best friend, the dog, digging only by chance at her grave: “I am sorry, but I quite forgot/It was your resting place.” The poem shows Hardy’s feelings towards relationships, perhaps that they cannot be fully trusted. This inability to fully connect with others not only causes disappointment when it is realised but it also relegates everyone to the corpse-like condition of the poems deceased. He feels that although he is not dead, his existence is very similar and the times he does connect with others it is only for a brief moment.
In Rossetti’s poetry love releases a melancholy desire for death, and for a kind of death not closely connected with her usual ideas of the underworld. It s a condition between sleeping and waking, a half-conscious state in which her memories fade with the strongest affections into the shadows. Both Hardy and Rossetti use the imagery of shadows and the underworld to present their ideas of death. Hardy makes mythological references to those who have loved and lost, by using ideas such as the “underworld.” Hardy's focuses also lie on communication; the use of the word “haunting” represents communication between worlds. By using this haunting element in his poetry, he is no longer mortal and can move freely from one place to the next, therefore by placing the voice of his death on the same plane as that of his dead wife, Hardy makes himself assessable to her death. A reference to haunting is made in “After a journey,”
“I have re-entered your olden haunts at last
Through the years, through the dead scenes I have tracked you
…Not the thin ghost that I fraily follow!”
Rossetti also writes about the idea of haunting:
“When I was dead, my spirit turned
To seek the much frequented house”
An example of this can be seen in the poem “At home.” Again she is writing of the dead being forgotten, “I all forgotten shivered, sad…” She describes going back to see her friends, who did not appear to be grieving at all, “they sang, they jested, and they laughed,” they talk of tomorrow where as the voice of the poem could only talk of the past. This is when it is most evident that they live in two separate worlds and like with Hardy, the idea of haunting is used to try and link these worlds together.
“I shall not see the shadows,” is another example in Rossetti’s “Song.”
Both Rossetti and Hardy explore many areas of death in their poetry. They discover through their writing that death can sometimes be a release from pain, as they both have experienced or are experiencing emotions and encounters connected to death. They write about memories of the death and the loss of loved ones, using strong and vivid imagery from the deathbed, mythology and the imagery associated with ‘haunting’. Death does shadow over their work but it is important to remember that it is not the only theme covered by these two poets. Religion and love are also covered. Whilst Hardy draws his experiences from his own life, Rossetti’s works are also influenced by both French love poetry and historical and biographical data.
Death is explored in many ways through the language used and the way they both pay wonderful attention to detail. Making these poets works an interesting delight to read, loved by many different generations.
Rachel Bingham
