Remember by Christina Georgina Rossetti
The speaker asks to be remembered after death, when holding hands and discussing a shared future will no longer be possible. Yet the speaker releases the addressee from grieving over temporary forgetfulness, preferring their happiness to sorrowful remembrance.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Sonnet, Lyric Poetry, Elegiac Poetry · 165 words
First lines
Sonnet.
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.
Genres
- Sonnet — Fourteen rhymed lines turn from a request for remembrance to permission to forget without grief.
- Lyric Poetry — A first-person speaker directly addresses someone with whom they have held hands and discussed a shared future.
- Elegiac Poetry — The speaker anticipates death and considers the sorrow that remembering the dead may bring.
Tags
remembrance · mortality · grief · forgetting · consolation · sonnet
What this Textopian page supports
Remember is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Sonnet, Lyric Poetry, Elegiac Poetry
- Length: 165 words
- Structure: 1 section, 2 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
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- Work identity for Remember by Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
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