The poem
Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)
Written in 1849; published in Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862).
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 planned:
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.
About the author
Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) was an English poet associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, the circle led by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She wrote 'Remember' at nineteen. Her best-known works, 'Goblin Market' and the Christmas carol 'In the Bleak Midwinter' (originally her poem), combine devotional feeling with precise, musical language. She never married and lived a quiet, deeply religious life in London.
Themes
Love that releases rather than clings. The sonnet begins as a plea, 'Remember me', and ends by giving the beloved permission to forget: better to forget and smile than to remember and be sad. It is a love poem that argues against its own first line, and wins the argument.
Reading note
Watch the turn at line 9, 'Yet if you should forget me': the whole sonnet pivots there. The first eight lines ask for remembrance; the last six take the request back. That reversal, from longing to generosity, is what lifts the poem above a simple elegy.