Christina Rossetti’s “Remember” is a Petrarchan sonnet with the rime scheme ABBAABBA in the octave and CDDECE in the sestet. The Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet traditionally features a shift between the octave and sestet, and in this sonnet the shift is signaled by the adverbial conjunction “yet.”
Octave: “Remember me when I am gone away”
The speaker is addressing her fiancé, from whom she is parting. She asks him to remember her after she has departed to that “silent land.” After she severs her engagement with him, they will no longer converse. It will be to him almost as if she had died; she will exist in perpetual silence, which will fall between them at the end of their relationship.
The speaker then refers to the simple act of handholding; after she has left the listener, he will no longer be able to “hold [her] by the hand.” He also will not experience her temporary departures wherein she would “half turn to go,” but then while “turning stay.”
The fiancé had often detailed to her his plans for their future. The speaker does not castigate the man for planning their future, but she implies that she will be relieved no longer to hear his ideas. Thus she again reiterates her command, asking him to remember her, but “only remember” her. She is not asking him to remember her fondly, for she is aware that such a command would be impossible.
The speaker avers that after their separation there will be no need for matrimonial “counsel” and prayer for their marriage. She knows he will understand all these things, and it is likely she is comforting herself more with these sentiments than she is her partner.
Sestet: “Yet if you should forget me for a while”
In the sestet, the speaker then allows for the possibility that the man might forget her “for a while.” And she asserts that the forgetfulness might bring him grief, which she asks him not to employ.
The speaker then says, “For if the darkness and corruption leave / A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,” indicating that she believes the relationship was doomed by some unclean act. She implies that she will try to forget that act, but she knows that thoughts of it may creep into her mind.
She therefore hopes that her former fiancé will not be troubled by this indiscretion. She avers that it would be better for him to forget the sordid part of their relationship and just remember her and be able to “smile.” That simple memory would serve him better than remembering the unclean mistake and therefore “be sad.”
The speaker, by framing her regrets in terms of simplicity of selective forgetfulness and selective remembrance, attempts to provide comfort to her fiancé and also to herself as they separate.
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