Memories
Oft I remember those whom I have knownIn other days, to whom my heart was ledAs by a magnet, and who are not dead,But absent, and their memories overgrownWith other thoughts and troubles of my own,As graves with grasses are, and at their headThe stone with moss and lichens so o'erspread,Nothing is legible but the name alone.And is it so with them? After long years,Do they remember me in the same way,And is the memory pleasant as to me?I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,And yet the root perennial may be.
Words in this poem
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Memories is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Project Gutenberg ebook #1365; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Memories, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/memories.html, id L17840.
Form and metre
Memories is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDECDE, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other Italian sonnets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBAABBACDECDE knownA · ledB · deadB · overgrownA · ownA · headB · o'erspreadB · aloneA · yearsC · wayD · meE · fearsC · decayD · beE
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Oft I remember those whom I have known | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| In other days, to whom my heart was led | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| As by a magnet, and who are not dead, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But absent, and their memories overgrown | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| With other thoughts and troubles of my own, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| As graves with grasses are, and at their head | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The stone with moss and lichens so o'erspread, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Nothing is legible but the name alone. | 10 | /˘·/˘···˘/ |
| And is it so with them? After long years, | 10 | ·········· |
| Do they remember me in the same way, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| And is the memory pleasant as to me? | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears? | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay, | 10 | /˘·/·/˘·˘/ |
| And yet the root perennial may be. | 10 | ····˘/˘˘·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.