The speaker imagines her own funeral and asks for passionate crimson flowers laid on her breast, seeing them as symbols of love-filled hours. She questions why people who believe in immortality should leave amid heavy grief; instead, she wants to be connected with colour and ecstasy, glad dancers with free white limbs moving through green veils, and children flushed with a mystic joy. She sets these down as wishes, then quickly adds that she doesn’t want to burden those left behind—any arrangement will be fine. Still, she cannot help craving mightily that, in her last hour, there be at least one dancer and one crimson flower. The mood is warm and life-affirming, with a gentle playfulness: a refusal of solemn mourning in favour of love, movement, and vivid beauty.
She Plans Her Funeral — Summary
Bring to me then all passionate, crimson flowers And lay them on my breast. They shall be symbols of the love-lit hours — And Love is best.
Folk who believe in Immortality, Why should they pass in panoply of woe? I would be linked with colour and ecstacy That day I go.
Linked with glad dancers, their white limbs set free, And rhythmical through veils of filmy green, With children, rose-flushed with a mystic glee — All these I mean To leave as wishes for my funeral day.
But, lest I burden those I leave behind, Let me add, hastily, that any way They care to manage — Will be to my mind !
Yet I crave mightily for that last hour At least one dancer and one crimson flower.