The darkest day of the year is behind us — each day now there will be a little more light.
Have you had a harder time gearing up for the holidays? Feeling less than festive?
Sometimes we miss those not with us most during this time and we are more emotionally vulnerable than on other days. Or, if you lose someone around this time, you are especially tender.
I always appreciate poetry that makes me feel better about loss, that helps me process it. In October I featured “Death Is Nothing At All” by Henry Scott-Holland and some readers remarked on it.
Today I present “Remember” by Christina Rosetti. Like the poem by Scott-Holland, “Remember” speaks in the voice of the dead. When I read it, I don’t so much as think about it in terms of my feelings but how I would like those I leave behind to feel.
I also like that is a secular poem. On my atheist days I can take comfort in the solace the poem supplies.
Peace, love, and solace
Remember
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 plann’d:
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.
Christina Rosetti
From: Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems. Christina Rosetti. 1879.
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