Remembrance
O, unforgotten lips, grey haunting eyes,Soft curving cheeks and heart-remembered brow,It is all true, the old love never dies;And, parted, we must meet for ever now.
We did not think it true! We did not thinkLove meant this universal cry of pain,This crown of thorn, this vinegar to drink,This lonely crucifixion o'er again.
Yet through the darkness of the sleepless nightYour tortured face comes meekly answering mine;Dumb, but I know why those mute lips are white;Dark, but I know why those dark lashes shine.
O, love, love, love, what death can set us freeFrom this implacable ghost of memory?
Words in this poem
- crucifixion n.
- The act of nailing or fastening a person to a cross, for the purpose of putting him to death; the use of the cross as a method of capital punishment.
- sleepless a.
- Having no sleep; wakeful.
- meekly adv.
- In a meek manner.
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Remembrance is in the public domain. This text is taken from Collected Poems: Volume One, Project Gutenberg ebook #30501; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Noyes, Remembrance, in Collected Poems, Volume One (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #30501, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/noyes-collected/remembrance.html, id L21483.
Form and metre
Remembrance is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See 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 ABAB eyesA · browB · diesA · nowB
- 2 ABAB thinkA · painB · drinkA · againB
- 3 ABAB nightA · mineB · whiteA · shineB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O, unforgotten lips, grey haunting eyes, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Soft curving cheeks and heart-remembered brow, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| It is all true, the old love never dies; | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| And, parted, we must meet for ever now. | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| We did not think it true! We did not think | 10 | ·········· |
| Love meant this universal cry of pain, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| This crown of thorn, this vinegar to drink, | 10 | ·····/˘˘·· |
| This lonely crucifixion o'er again. | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘·˘/ |
| Yet through the darkness of the sleepless night | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Your tortured face comes meekly answering mine; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Dumb, but I know why those mute lips are white; | 10 | ·········· |
| Dark, but I know why those dark lashes shine. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| O, love, love, love, what death can set us free | 10 | ·········· |
| From this implacable ghost of memory? | 11 | ··˘/˘˘··/˘˘ |
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.