emma_in_dream (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
emma_in_dream) wrote2010-08-28 08:33 pm
emma_in_dream) wrote2010-08-28 08:33 pm
Entry tags:
19th century books - Christina Rossetti
An analysis of one of my favourite poems:
Remember me when I am gone away, [I like the descending cadence here]
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. [Reading this aloud, you naturally put a pause on either side of ‘turning’, giving this line a halting slowness.]
Remember me when no more day by day. [I love the repetition in this poem.]
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray. [Again, a dropping cadence. But what a change in the rhythm of the next line.]
Yet if you should forget me for a while [The remember/forget dichotomy is obvious but powerful.]
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. [I admire the incredible compression of this sonnet - it winds up with this new concluding thought in the last couplet.]
Remember me when I am gone away, [I like the descending cadence here]
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. [Reading this aloud, you naturally put a pause on either side of ‘turning’, giving this line a halting slowness.]
Remember me when no more day by day. [I love the repetition in this poem.]
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray. [Again, a dropping cadence. But what a change in the rhythm of the next line.]
Yet if you should forget me for a while [The remember/forget dichotomy is obvious but powerful.]
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. [I admire the incredible compression of this sonnet - it winds up with this new concluding thought in the last couplet.]