Christina Georgina Rossetti

Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,

Silent land

Victorian euphemism for death, borrowed from Longfellow's popular 1839 poem 'A Psalm of Life.' Rossetti expects her reader to catch the literary reference.

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.

Half turn

The physical hesitation of leaving—one foot out the door, body twisted back. She's describing the moment before death, not after.

Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand

Counsel then or pray

After death, advice and prayers won't reach her. This contradicts Catholic doctrine about prayers for the dead—Rossetti's Anglo-Catholic faith believed they could.

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

Darkness and corruption

Literal physical decay of the body in the grave. She's acknowledging what Victorians usually avoided: corpses rot.

Vestige of thoughts

The conditional 'if' matters—she's uncertain whether consciousness survives death at all. Unusual doubt for a religious poet.

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile

Forget and smile

The volta reverses everything. She gives him permission to move on, prioritizing his happiness over being remembered.

Than that you should remember and be sad.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Petrarchan Volta

This is a Petrarchan sonnet—octave (8 lines) presenting a problem, sestet (6 lines) resolving it. The rhyme scheme confirms it: ABBAABBA CDDECE.

The volta (turn) happens exactly at line 9: 'Yet if you should forget me for a while.' Everything before demands remembrance—five imperatives to 'remember me.' Everything after gives permission to forget.

What makes this volta work is the word 'Yet.' It signals reversal. But notice she doesn't say 'forget me completely'—she says 'for a while / And afterwards remember.' She's imagining his grief process: initial memory, then forgetting, then remembering again. The permission to forget is temporary, which softens the reversal.

The final couplet completes the turn with 'Better by far you should forget and smile / Than that you should remember and be sad.' She's rewritten the entire octave's argument. Memory becomes optional; his emotional wellbeing becomes mandatory.

What Rossetti Left Out

CONTEXT Rossetti wrote this in 1849, age 19, and published it in 1862. She never married, though she broke two engagements on religious grounds—both men weren't Anglo-Catholic enough for her standards.

The poem addresses 'you' but never identifies the relationship. Not 'my love,' not 'my friend,' not 'my husband.' The vagueness is strategic—it universalizes the poem. Any reader becomes the 'you.'

Look at what the octave reveals about their relationship: 'our future that you planned' (line 6). He planned it; the grammar makes him the active planner. 'You tell me of our future'—he talks, she listens. This isn't mutual planning; it's his vision she's inhabiting.

The physical detail matters: 'hold me by the hand' (line 3) is restrained, almost formal. No embraces, no kisses. Victorian propriety, yes, but also emotional distance. The most intimate moment is 'half turn to go yet turning stay'—a gesture of ambivalence, not passion.

Then 'darkness and corruption' (line 11)—Rossetti names bodily decay directly. Victorian poetry usually avoided such explicit mortality. She's forcing the reader to imagine her corpse rotting, which makes the final permission to forget feel like mercy, not betrayal.