Tim Gracyk | "Remember" Christina Rossetti sonnet poem Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away ... @timgracyk | Uploaded October 2024 | Updated October 2024, 15 hours ago.
Remember

By Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

This "Italian sonnet" in iambic pentameter has an opening octave and a sestet (14 lines total, 10 syllables per line).

The opening octave (8 lines) introduces an idea about death that is explored from a different angle in the final sestet (6 lines). The mood here is somber, solemn--but never morbid.

The poem's speaker, who faces death, expresses a wish to be remembered by the lover left behind.

Many sonnets treat love as a topic, but this sonnet has a twist due to a death motif. "Yet" is a contrast coordinator, conveying a shift in tone as it opens the sestet.

The speaker gives the audience/lover/listener/living permission to forget her if remembrance is too sad.