"Remember" (A Poem)

Unlike her brother Dante Gabriel, who buried and later disinterred the body of his deceased wife Elizabeth Siddal, Christina Rossetti’s dealings with death were no different than the average Victorian.[1] Due to this factor, Lorraine Janzen Kooistra explains, the writer remained relatively silent on the subject of death, only composing a limited number of works which dealt with the subject.[2] Her poem “Remember,” in turn, is just one of these few and takes a straightforward approach over the traditional sentimentalism, asserting that it is better to be forgotten than to be remembered only through the sadness of mourning.

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.[3]

Works Referenced

Kooistra, Lorraine Janzen. “Science and Art: Vestiges of Corpses in Pre-Raphaelite Illustrations.” Reading Victorian Illustrations, 1855-1875: Spoils of the Lumber Room. Edited by Paul Goldman and Simon Cooke. London: Routledge, 2016. 97-114.

Rossetti, Christina. “Remember.” Goblin Market and Other Poems. London: MacMillan and Company, 1862. 58.
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[1] Kooistra, 97.
[2] Kooistra, 97.
[3] Rossetti, 58.