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I Remember, I Remember
But these days, I often wish I'd died during the night!
POEM TEXT I remember the red and white roses, the violets, and the
lilies—flowers that seemed to be made of light. I remember the
1 I remember, I remember, lilac bush where the robins nested, and the place where my
2 The house where I was born, brother planted the laburnum tree on his birthday; it's still
3 The little window where the sun growing today!
4 Came peeping in at morn; I remember where I used to play on the swing; I felt sure that
5 He never came a wink too soon, the air rushing past me must feel just as fresh to swooping
6 Nor brought too long a day, swallows. My soul seemed to be a bird then, but now it's
weighed down—and even a summer swim couldn't cool my
7 But now, I often wish the night
feverish forehead!
8 Had borne my breath away!
I remember the tall fir trees; I used to believe their tops nearly
9 I remember, I remember, touched the sky. That was just childish foolishness. But now
that I'm an adult, it doesn't give me much pleasure to know that
10 The roses, red and white,
heaven is farther away than I believed it was when I was little.
11 The vi'lets, and the lily-cups,
12 Those flowers made of light!
13 The lilacs where the robin built, THEMES
14 And where my brother set
15 The laburnum on his birthday,— NOSTALGIA FOR THE JOY OF
16 The tree is living yet! CHILDHOOD
The speaker of “I Remember, I Remember” looks back
17 I remember, I remember,
with mingled love and pain at the days of his childhood. When
18 Where I was used to swing,
he was a child, he remembers, he felt in tune with the world
19 And thought the air must rush as fresh around him, loved the beauty of nature, and took delight in
20 To swallows on the wing; every day. Adulthood, alas, doesn’t feel like that at all. To a sad
21 My spirit flew in feathers then, or suffering adult, this poem suggests, the innocent freedom of
22 That is so heavy now, childhood can look like a lost paradise; growing up seems to
23 And summer pools could hardly cool mean all loss and little reward.
24 The fever on my brow! In this speaker’s memory, childhood might as well have been an
eternal summer holiday. The “roses,” “vi’lets” (violets), and “lily-
25 I remember, I remember, cups” (lilies) were always in bloom; the days always felt just the
26 The fir trees dark and high; right length; and riding a swing, the speaker felt as if his “spirit
27 I used to think their slender tops flew in feathers” like a swallow. He delighted in the natural
28 Were close against the sky: world around him and greeted every day with joy. (The speaker
is idealizing his youth here: it couldn’t always have been a
29 It was a childish ignorance,
blissful summer day when he was a boy, after all. Nonetheless,
30 But now 'tis little joy
he's capturing something important about a kind of joy he only
31 To know I'm farther off from heav'n felt as a child.)
32 Than when I was a boy.
As an adult, by contrast, the speaker’s soul feels anything but
feather-light. He’s “heavy” with worries, there’s a “fever on [his]
brow,” and he often wishes that he’d just die in the night so he
SUMMARY wouldn’t have to face the morning. Looking back on his youth,
he feels a melancholy, bittersweet nostalgia for a time when he
I remember the house I was born in, with the little window was joyfully in tune with the world around him and unburdened
where the morning sun peeked in. Back then, the sun never by cares. For this speaker, being a child meant living a life of
seemed to rise too early, and the day never seemed too long. freedom, exhilaration, and easy joy—and adulthood feels like

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getting kicked out of paradise. The poem begins with a fond reminiscence of the speaker’s
childhood home: “II remember
remember,, I remember
remember, / The house where I
Where this theme appears in the poem: was born” he begins, his rhythmic epizeuxis working like a spell
to carry him into his memories.
• Lines 1-32
In particular, he remembers the mornings, when the sun came
“peeping in” his “little window” to wake him up. Back then, he
CHILDREN'S CONNECTION TO NATURE suggests, he felt like the sun was a friend. He personifies the
This poem takes a very capital-R Romantic view of sun as he describes its thoughtfulness: “He never came a wink
childhood, suggesting that children are closely in too soon, / Nor brought too long a day." The young speaker and
tune with nature—and thus closely in tune with the divine. Like his pal the sun were perfectly in agreement about life, it seems.
Thomas Hood’s contemporary William W Wordsworth
ordsworth, this Under this sun’s friendly guidance, mornings were always
poem’s speaker feels that children, through their connection to welcome, and days never dragged out too long.
the natural world, can reach toward “heav’n” in a way that The little speaker and the early sun might have been in tune in a
adults can’t. different way, too: both were morning creatures, symbolically
The speaker remembers that, in his boyhood, he once believed speaking. The speaker is remembering a time in the morning of
that the “fir trees” around his childhood home were “close his life, when he wasn’t just friendly with the morning sun but
against the sky”: that is, that they almost touched the sky. As an also like the morning sun, at the very beginning of his life's
adult, he knows that this was just “childish ignorance.” But he journey.
also wishes that he could still be so blissfully ignorant. Now that Already, readers might get the sense that this lovely
he knows that the sky isn’t just a blue roof, so close you can relationship with the sun—and thus, with the passing of
almost touch it, he feels “farther off from heav’n” both literally time—hasn’t lasted into the speaker’s adulthood. Even by
and figur
figurativ
atively
ely. To a child, these words suggest, heaven itself raising the idea that the sun could “bring too long a day,” the
seems within arm’s reach. speaker implies that, since then, he’s run into days that feel far
Part of children's closeness to heaven, in this speaker’s view, too long.
comes from their instinctive delight in nature. When he was a In fact, some of the speaker’s days might feel almost
boy, the speaker remembers, he saw the sun as a friend, unendurable. He closes this stanza with an abrupt change of
relished the intense colors of the flowers, and felt that he must tone, confiding that, these days, he often wishes that “the night
know how the swallows feel when he rode on his swing. In fact, / Had borne my breath away!” He sometimes wishes, in other
almost all of his memories of childhood have to do with reveling words, that he might just die in the night and not have to
in the beauty of the natural world. Such an easy relish of nature, endure yet another sunrise and yet another day. (The blunt /b/
the poem suggests, allows children to feel that this world might alliter
alliteration
ation of "b
borne my breath away" adds extra punch to this
indeed be pretty close to “heav’n.” painful idea.) Things have changed since childhood, then. This
sharp, sad juxtaposition between youthful mornings of
Where this theme appears in the poem: happiness and adult nights of misery will lie at the heart of this
poem.
• Lines 3-6
• Lines 9-16 The speaker will deliver his sad reflections in octaves (eight-line
• Lines 17-24 stanzas) written in a variation on common meter
meter:
• Lines 25-32
• In common meter, lines of iambic tetrameter (lines
of four iambs
iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM
DUM rhythm,
as in “He ne
nevv- | er came | a wink | too soon
soon”)
LINE-BY
LINE-BY-LINE
-LINE ANAL
ANALYSIS
YSIS alternate with lines of iambic trimeter (lines of three
iambs, as in “The house | where I | was born
born”).
LINES 1-8 • This poem's stanzas almost follow that rhythm. But
I remember, I remember, the echoing first line—“I remember, I
The house where I was born, remember”—falls into a different, dreamier pattern,
The little window where the sun with just two strong stresses
stresses: “I remem
member, I
Came peeping in at morn; remem
member.”
He never came a wink too soon, • That quiet opening line fittingly stands apart from
Nor brought too long a day, the speaker’s descriptions of his childhood—just as
But now, I often wish the night he must stand apart from his memories, unable to
Had borne my breath away! return to his youthful happiness.

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LINES 9-16 That is so heavy now,
I remember, I remember, And summer pools could hardly cool
The roses, red and white, The fever on my brow!
The vi'lets, and the lily-cups, Once more beginning with his spell-like refr
refrain
ain—“I remember, I
Those flowers made of light! remember”—the speaker now turns to his childhood memories
The lilacs where the robin built, of riding a swing in his garden. As he swung, he recalls, he used
And where my brother set to think that “the air must rush as fresh / To swallows on the
The laburnum on his birthday,— wing”: that swooping swallows must take the same kind of
The tree is living yet! delight in the rushing air that he did. (The poem's consonance
The second stanza begins with the same words the first started here helps readers to share in that delight: the /sh/ sounds of
with: “I remember, I remember.” This invocation of memory has “rush
sh” and “fresh
sh” capture that delicious swing-breeze.)
become a refr
refrain
ain, an echo that keeps the idea of memory right The speaker again reveals how closely his little self was attuned
in front of the reader’s eyes. Through his repetition of these to nature. “My spirit flew in feathers then,” he says, a metaphor
words, the speaker calls up his memories and keeps them at a that suggests he felt a deep kinship with the swallows in their
distance. He isn’t just sinking into fond thoughts of his past, he’s exhilarating flight. That feathered lightness, like everything
describing how helplessly he’s stuck gazing back at them, else, has changed. Now, his soul is “heavy,” weighed to the earth
unable to return to those happier days. by his worries and sorrows.
Now, he remembers the garden around his childhood home, a Even if he returned to the same landscape he grew up in, it
landscape overflowing with summer flowers: “roses, red and couldn’t lift his heavy spirits; if he were to dunk himself in one
white,” “lily-cups,” “lilacs,” “vi’lets.” (Note that Hood contracts the of the “summer pools” where he used to swim, he says, its
word “violets” there so it will fit into his meter; the world used waters couldn’t “cool / The fever on [his] brow.” Whether that
to be pronounced with three syllables, VI VI-o-lets.) fever is a metaphorical fever of emotion or a literal fever (a kind
of illness with which the always sickly Thomas Hood was all too
These flowers, the speaker cries, were “made of light”—a
familiar), the speaker feels helpless before it.
metaphor that suggests he saw an ethereal, perhaps heavenly
beauty in his earthly garden. Here, Hood’s speaker seems to At this point, readers might begin to wonder about what
agree with the big Romantic thinkers of his era: children, he nostalgia does to the speaker’s memories. When he remembers
hints, see nature differently than adults do
do, perceiving the childhood, he seems to remember a time of eternal warmth and
divine in the living, growing world. The speaker remembers that light: all the flowers and animals he mentions appear, in
his family had a lovely garden, yes, but more than that, he England, only in the summer. As in the speaker’s relationship
remembers that he once saw this garden with different eyes. with the sun, there’s a symbolic significance here. The speaker
is looking back on the metaphorical summer of his life; no
The speaker also remembers gentler, cozier sights, like robins’
wonder that all he sees are glowing flowers and swooping
nests in the lilac trees and the “laburnum” (a kind of ornamental
swallows. Perhaps this vision of an eternal summer garden
tree) that his brother planted “on his birthday.” Here, again, the
even suggests Eden (or, better yet, Eden before EvEvee turned up
up).
present intrudes on the past: “The tree is living yet,” the speaker
This is a vision of a completely innocent paradise—a paradise
says, a line that suggests he has returned to this garden and
lost.
seen the tree his brother planted long ago, still growing.
This vision of childhood is obviously an idealized one. The
That idea is hopeful, perhaps; the garden isn’t dead or gone, and
speaker makes no mention of getting stomach bugs or having to
nor is the speaker, and nor (readers can hope) is his brother.
trudge off to school. His memories of childhood aren't precisely
The laburnum lives on, and so do they. But in the light of the
a recounting of his life story; instead, he's remembering a way
speaker’s earlier confession that he sometimes wishes he
he often felt in childhood, and, the poem implies, could only feel
wouldn’t wake up in the morning, the continued presence of the
in childhood.
laburnum in the garden might be more a painful reminder that
his life isn’t what it used to be than a comforting reminder of LINES 25-32
continuity.
I remember, I remember,
LINES 17-24 The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
I remember, I remember,
Were close against the sky:
Where I was used to swing,
It was a childish ignorance,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
But now 'tis little joy
To swallows on the wing;
To know I'm farther off from heav'n
My spirit flew in feathers then,
Than when I was a boy.

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With one last repetition of his refr
refrain
ain, the speaker turns to a he’s in a very different season of life now: adulthood, by
final memory: an impression of the “fir trees” around his extension, must mean autumn and winter, chilly times of loss.
childhood home. “Dark and high,” these trees feel grander than
the flowers and birds the speaker has described so far. And if Where this symbol appears in the poem:
they’re fir trees, they’re unlike those flowers and birds in
another important way: they’re evergreen. Unlike roses, violets, • Lines 3-4: “the sun / Came peeping in at morn;”
and swallows, they flourish all year round. Symbolically
Symbolically, they • Lines 10-13: “The roses, red and white, / The vi'lets, and
the lily-cups, / Those flowers made of light! / The lilacs
suggest eternity.
where the robin built,”
The speaker recalls these trees with awe. “I used to think their • Line 20: “swallows on the wing”
slender tops / Were close against the sky,” he says: in other • Line 23: “summer pools”
words, he used to think that the trees were so tall they actually
touched the sky, holding the heavens up like columns
supporting a roof. As an adult, he knows that this was just THE FIR TREES
“childish ignorance.” But it’s a kind of childish ignorance he Most of the plants that the speaker describes in this
misses and laments. It’s “little joy,” he says, no comfort at all, to poem only blossom in the warm months: roses,
be less ignorant now: it only means he’s “farther off from violets, lilacs, and lilies are all summer flowers. At the end of the
heav’n” than he was when he was a boy. poem, however, he remembers the "fir trees" that grew around
In this context, those words take on a double meaning. There’s his home. When the speaker was little, he recalls, he thought
a rueful little laugh here: there's something childishly sweet that the fir trees might reach all the way up to "heav'n." This
about the idea that the heavens might be so close to earth, image of trees brushing up against the sky represents how
something no adult could believe. But more importantly, the close the speaker felt to heaven as a child—how heavenly
speaker also feels further from heaven in the sense that he can childhood itself was in the speaker's young eyes. Now, however,
no longer perceive the world as a heavenly place. When he was the speaker sees this idea as only "childish ignorance." The loss
a boy, the flowers were made of light and his soul was a of this belief about the fir trees reflects the loss of that
swallow: nature was paradise. Now that he's an adult, the world childhood ignorance, but also the loss of blissful childhood
is a crueler place, and heaven—if it’s accessible at all—seems far, innocence. As an adult, he feels "farther off" from heaven than
far away. he did as a child.
The image of sky-touching evergreen trees might hint at At the same time, those evergreen trees, which stay just the
something consolingly eternal: a connection to the heavens same year-round, might symbolically suggest eternity, subtly
that doesn't have to end when childhood does. But such counterbalancing the poem's nostalgic sadness. By introducing
consolation isn’t within this melancholy speaker’s reach right an image of trees that traditionally symbolize eternal life—and
now. All he can do is “remember” the long-ago time when he felt associating those trees with heaven—the poem hints that
that he was part of a kindly summer world. nature might still offer the speaker hope for heavenly
consolation, even if the summer of his life is lost.

SYMBOLS Where this symbol appears in the poem:

• Lines 25-28: “I remember, I remember, / The fir trees
SUMMER dark and high; / I used to think their slender tops / Were
The sights and sounds of summer symbolize close against the sky:”
childhood and its joys. When the speaker looks back
on his youth, he seems to feel as if he never lived in any month
but mid-June. The sun always shone bright; the roses, lilies, and POETIC DEVICES
violets were always in bloom; the swallows were always on the
wing. What’s more, the speaker felt attuned to these natural REPETITION
beauties. He and the sun always seemed to agree about when
The poem’s repetitions bring its themes of nostalgia and
was the right time for the day to begin and end, and the
memory to center stage, starting from the very first line: “I
swallows and his “spirit” alike “flew in feathers.”
remember, I remember.” The epizeuxis on those words helps to
Childhood was, in other words, the happy summer of the capture what memory feels like: the speaker uses an echoing
speaker’s life, a time when just to be alive felt like having the phrasing to describe an echoing experience. This epizeuxis
best imaginable sunny day out in the garden. By connecting his might also suggest a certain relentlessness in the speaker’s
childhood so insistently to the summer, the speaker implies that memories. Maybe he isn’t trying to think fondly back on his

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childhood so much as he’s being helplessly carried back into his sunlit; he was as much a part of nature as a little bird. In
memories of those happier days. adulthood, he feels as if he’s been cast out of that harmonious
That sense of helplessness only gets stronger when this already paradise.
repetitive phrase becomes a refr
refrain
ain. Every stanza of the poem
begins with those same two words, keeping memory always in Where Metaphor appears in the poem:
front of the speaker’s (and the reader’s) eyes. Remembering • Lines 3-6: “the sun / Came peeping in at morn; / He
childhood, all these repetitions suggest, might be just as painful never came a wink too soon, / Nor brought too long a
as it’s comforting: the chant-like repetition of “I remember, I day,”
remember” hints that the speaker can’t look away from • Lines 10-12: “The roses, red and white, / The vi'lets, and
thoughts of happier days. the lily-cups, / Those flowers made of light!”
Perhaps these repetitions also invite readers to wonder what • Lines 21-22: “My spirit flew in feathers then, / That is so
the speaker doesn’t remember. Childhood isn’t all one long heavy now,”
summer day, after all. The speaker’s idealized picture of the
past leaves out school, head lice, and going to bed while the JUXTAPOSITION
sun’s still up. Each of this poem’s stanzas sets up a mournful juxtaposition
between the past and the present. Typically, the speaker starts
Where Repetition appears in the poem: his stanzas by reflecting on an idealized memory of his
• Line 1: “I remember, I remember,” childhood, remembering youth as a time when he felt perfectly
• Line 9: “I remember, I remember,” in tune with the world. He greeted each sunrise with joy, he
• Line 17: “I remember, I remember,” relished the beauty of flowers and the grandeur of trees, he felt
• Line 25: “I remember, I remember,” as light and free as a swooping swallow.
But then the other shoe drops: now that he’s an adult, the
METAPHOR speaker confesses, all that joy and ease have vanished. The
speaker never explains what it is about his adult life that makes
The speaker’s metaphors suggest that his childhood felt like an
his soul feel “heavy"—so heavy, in fact, that he sometimes
enchanted garden, a paradise where all of nature conspired to
wishes he might be “borne away” by death overnight. But
delight him. (Or at the very least, his memories of his childhood
perhaps the mere loss of childhood joy is enough to make life
feel like an enchanted garden: looking back now, he remembers
feel like a burden. This poem follows a Romantic-er
Romantic-eraa tr tradition
adition in
only the bliss of childhood.)
imagining childhood as a time when one is close to “heav’n,”
The magic began every morning when a personified sun came more able to see divine beauty in the world than adults are. In
“peeping in” his window like a buddy eager to wake him up. “He particular, it suggests that children get close to heaven through
never came a wink too soon,” the speaker remembers: this sun their special affinity with nature. As a little boy, this speaker
was of one mind with the speaker, both of them ready to greet could feel one with the sparrows and the flowers; as an adult,
another joyful day at exactly the same time. This personification he can’t find his way into that enchanted paradise anymore.
suggests that the speaker once felt perfectly in tune with the
rhythm of the days. The rising sun never warned of a day of
Where Juxtaposition appears in the poem:
suffering then.
• Lines 5-8: “He never came a wink too soon, / Nor
And how could it, when the speaker emerged every day into a
brought too long a day, / But now, I often wish the night /
world of delights? The speaker remembers seeing the roses,
Had borne my breath away!”
lilies, and violets of his childhood garden as “flowers made of
• Lines 21-24: “My spirit flew in feathers then, / That is so
light,” glowing with ethereal color. This metaphor suggests a
heavy now, / And summer pools could hardly cool / The
heavenly scene, as if the flowers were the perfect, eternal spirit
fever on my brow!”
of flower-ness. A “flower made of light” doesn’t seem likely to • Lines 25-32: “I remember, I remember, / The fir trees
wilt, droop, or fade. dark and high; / I used to think their slender tops / Were
Back then, the speaker felt like part of this glowing natural close against the sky: / It was a childish ignorance, / But
world. His “spirit rode in feathers then,” he remembers: his soul now 'tis little joy / To know I'm farther off from heav'n /
felt as light, free, and exuberant as a “swallow” swooping Than when I was a boy.”
overhead. This metaphor—and all the speaker’s
metaphors—connect the speaker’s childhood to the sights of ALLITERATION
the summer. As a little boy, the speaker feels, he could rejoice in Alliter
Alliteration
ation gives the speaker’s voice emphasis and music,
a natural world that seemed endlessly beautiful, friendly, and highlighting his feelings about his happy past and his sorrowful

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present. For instance, consider the moment of high drama in syllables: VI
VI-o-lets.
lines 7-8, the end of the first stanza. For most of this stanza, the Lily-cups (Line 11) - That is, the cup-shaped blossoms of the
speaker has been remembering how happily he used to greet lilies.
the sunrise as a child. As an adult, however, he feels quite
differently: Set (Line 14) - Planted.
Laburnum (Line 15) - A kind of ornamental tree.
But now, I often wish the night Where I was used to swing (Line 18) - That is, "where I used to
Had borne my breath away! play on a swing."
'Tis (Line 30) - A contraction of "it is."
These paired /n/ and /b/ sounds make the speaker’s abrupt
death-wish stand out even more startlingly.
In the next stanza, sweeter sounds accentuate the speaker’s FORM, METER, & RHYME
description of his childhood home’s garden:
FORM
The vi'lets, and the lily-cups, “I Remember, I Remember” is divided into four octaves (or
Those flowers made of light! eight-line stanzas), each framing a particular memory of the
The lilacs where the robin built, speaker’s childhood home: his bedroom window, the flowers in
And where my brother set the garden, the swing, the tall fir trees. Every stanza uses an
The laburnum on his birthday,— alternating ABCB DEFE rh rhyme
yme scheme that breaks it down
The tree is living yet! into two four-line parts:

This long chain of gentle, lilting /l/ sounds (deepened by the • The first section fondly describes the speaker’s
internal /l/ consonance of “fllowers,” "vi'llets," “llilly-cups,” and boyhood joys.
“llillacs,” as well as the long /i/ assonance of "vii'lets," "liight," • The second introduces the speaker’s adult
"liilacs") makes this garden sound as harmonious as it looks. experience, usually setting up an unhappy
And when the speaker describes how his soul once "fflew in juxtaposition
juxtaposition: his once birdlike soul is “heavy” now,
feathers" like a little bird, his jaunty /f/ alliteration gives his the mornings he used to greet so happily now begin
words a fitting lift. days that drag out for “too long.”

Maybe the poem’s most distinctive formal feature is its refr

refrain
ain:
Where Alliter
Alliteration
ation appears in the poem:
the “I remember, I remember” that begins every stanza. Those
• Line 8: “borne,” “breath” repeated words feel almost like a spell the speaker recites to
• Line 9: “remember” bring his happier days back to his mind. Or perhaps they
• Line 10: “roses, red” suggest his powerlessness in the face of his memories: he can’t
• Line 11: “lily-cups” help but remember those better days now that he’s living out
• Line 12: “light” his unhappy adulthood.
• Line 13: “lilacs”
The rhythm of this refrain cuts across the poem’s meter
meter. For
• Line 15: “laburnum”
the most part, the poem uses a variation on common meter meter, a
• Line 16: “living”
meter that uses alternating lines of iambic tetrameter (lines of
• Line 21: “flew,” “feathers”
four iambs
iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM
DUM rhythm, as in “He ne nevv-
• Line 27: “slender”
• Line 28: “sky” | er came | a wink | too soon
soon”) and iambic trimeter (lines of
three iambs, as in “The house | where I | was born
born”). This
rhythm is indeed common: it turns up in a lot of old ballads and
folk songs. But the muttery, dithery, mostly unstressed rhythms
VOCABULARY of “I remem
member, I remem
member” don’t quite fit into that pattern.
At morn (Line 4) - In the morning. Perhaps the contrast helps to underscore one of the speaker’s
feelings: remembering the past and being able to reclaim the past
Borne (Line 8) - Carried, taken. In saying he wishes "the night /
are very different things. He can’t get back into the swing of his
Had borne my breath away," the speaker is saying that he
childhood joy just through remembering it, much as he longs to.
wishes he died in the night.
Vi'lets (Line 11) - A contraction of "violets." Hood specifies this METER
contraction because "violets" was once pronounced with three "I Remember, I Remember" uses a variation on common meter
meter.

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In a poem written in common meter, the lines alternate
between iambic tetrameter (lines of four iambsiambs, metrical feet SPEAKER
with a da-DUM
DUM rhythm, as in line 5's "He ne nevv- | er came | a wink
The speaker is a voice for Thomas Hood himself. Hood suffered
| too soon
soon") and iambic trimeter (lines of three iambs, as in line
from bad health for much of his short life; he would die at the
12 "Those flow
flow- | ers made | of light
light!"). This was a popular form
age of 45 after years of sickness. The "fever" on the speaker's
in Hood's era: Hood was one of many writers who followed in
brow isn't just a metaphorical fever of worry or unhappiness,
the footsteps of writers like Coleridge and Wordsworth
ordsworth,
then, but a very real ailment.
influential Romantic poets who advocated for a return to the
simple forms and language of old ballads and folk songs. However, readers don't need to know Hood's history to
understand this speaker's character. This nostalgic man looks
Here, there are a couple of small differences, though. First off,
back on the happy days of his youth with deep sorrow,
poems in common meter are usually written in quatr
quatrains
ains (or
understanding his childhood as a lost paradise. In his fond
four-line stanzas); here, the speaker doubles those quatrains
memories, every day of boyhood was bliss: the flowers seemed
up, forming octaves.
to be "made of light," the sun never "brought too long a day,"
Then there's the refr
refrain
ain that opens every stanza. The rhythm of and to ride on a swing was to feel as free and light as "swallows
these echoing words is almost (but not exactly) anapestic on the wing."
dimeter, a line of two anapests
anapests. An anapest is a metrical foot
Adulthood feels very different. Though the speaker never
with a da-da-DUM
DUM rhythm; these anapests each have an extra
explains exactly why his life feels so painfully changed now, he
unstressed syllable clinging to their ends, like this:
darkly hints that all is the opposite of what it once was: his once
birdlike spirit is "heavy now," and the joys of summer can no
I remem
member, | I remem
member
longer soothe him. Perhaps, the poem suggests, a loss of
wholehearted childhood delight is just part of growing up,
Each stanza thus starts with a pulsing, muttery line, like a chant
whether or not one is enduring particular sufferings.
or a spell taking the speaker back into the steady swing of his
memories.

RHYME SCHEME SETTING

"I Remember, I Remember" follows a simple rh
rhyme
yme scheme that This poem seems to take place almost entirely in the speaker's
runs like this: memories of his childhood home. He thinks back fondly on the
ABCBDEFE "house where [he] was born," a place that (to his nostalgic mind)
seemed like an earthly paradise. In the speaker's memory of
This pattern breaks each octave (or eight-line stanza) down
childhood, it always seems to be high summer: the roses,
into two four-line passages, each with the same kind of
violets, and lilies are in bloom; the swallows are swooping; the
alternating rhyme pattern. This light, easy interplay of sounds
cheery sun comes "peeping in" the speaker's window every
feels simple and nursery-rhyme-ish, suiting the poem's
morning.
nostalgic tone.
The speaker's vision of these bright, happy days of boyhood
Across the poem, of course, the first A rhyme is always the
freedom is clearly rose-tinted. He doesn't recall, say, trudging
same: the echoing "remember" of the refr
refrain
ain forms an identical
to school in a rainstorm or getting stuck in bed with the mumps.
rhyme that ties the whole work together. The speaker also
His vision of his childhood is both romantic and capital-R
throws in an emphatic internal rh
rhyme
yme at the end of the third
Romantic: lik
likee Hood's contempor
contemporary
ary William W
Wordsworth
ordsworth, this
stanza:
speaker treats childhood as a time when you're closer to
heaven than you can ever be as an adult.
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow! Alas, life has changed for the speaker now. Though the speaker
never reveals much about his adult circumstances, readers can
This extra little dash of rhyme adds special intensity to the gather that life feels very far from his childhood paradise these
speaker's dark musings on his unquenchable fever—an image days. Adult cares and worries make his soul heavy. And even
that might be read metaphorically as a vision of adult cares and though the laburnum tree his brother planted is "living yet"—a
worries, but also literally as Thomas Hood's all-too-real line that suggests the speaker can still visit his childhood home
account of dealing with persistent illnesses (which would kill if he likes—the old feeling of the place is lost forever.
him at the age of only 45).

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 Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com
of the “fever on [his] brow” is an all-too-real evocation of
CONTEXT Hood’s sufferings. He wrote this poem in 1826, when he was
only 27, but he was already suffering from the beginnings of
LITERARY CONTEXT the ailments that would eventually kill him.
Thomas Hood (1799-1845) was a British poet, journalist, and Hood was one of many young poets of this era whose career
humorist. Born and raised in London, he would become one of was cut tragically short. While he outlived Keats (who died of
the city’s important literary men, a champion and friend of tuberculosis at 25), Percy Shelle
Shelleyy (who drowned at 29), and
some of the most notable writers of English Romanticism. In his Byron (who died of a fever at 36), he nonetheless joined an
role as a sub-editor of The London Magazine, he traveled in the unhappy Romantic literary tradition when he died at 45.
same circles as John K Keats
eats, John Clare
Clare, Charles Lamb
Lamb, and
Samuel T Taaylor Coleridge
Coleridge.
In this poem, Hood shows his own Romantic stripes. His vision MORE RESOUR
RESOURCES
CES
of childhood as a time when people are closer to heaven than
they could ever be as adults reveals the influence of William EXTERNAL RESOURCES
Wordsworth (one of the granddaddies of English Romanticism), • A Contempor
Contemporary's
ary's Memory of Hood — Read a reflection
who famously wrote that children see the natural world with on Hood by his acquaintance S. C. Hall.
the “glory and the freshness of a dream”—a power of seeing (https:/
(https://www
/www..victorian
victorianweb.org/authors/hood/
web.org/authors/hood/
that fades away as they grow up. hallbio.html)
Other works of Hood’s are also rooted in 19th-century • The Comic Annual — Take a look at the text of an edition of
concerns about the lives of the working poor. His famous “Song Song Hood's Comic Annual for a glimpse of the poet's influential
of the Shirt
Shirt” tells the story of a seamstress working her life role as a humorist and editor.
away “in poverty, hunger, and dirt,” without “one short hour” for (https:/
(https:///minorvictorian
minorvictorianwriters.org.uk/hood/
writers.org.uk/hood/
leisure, or even for tears of grief over her predicament. This b_comic_annual.htm)
poem—which made a splash, getting republished and discussed
• A Brief Biogr
Biograph
aphyy — Read an overview of Hood's life and
all over Europe—was part of a rising 19th-century tide of
work. (https:/
(https:///poets.org/poet/thomas-hood)
radical literature, in which writers like Percy Shelle
Shelleyy, Blak
Blakee, and
Dick
Dickens
ens railed against economic and political injustice (all in • The PPoem
oem Aloud — Listen to a reading of the poem.
their different ways). (https:/
(https:///youtu.be/2nqCfuLnSlM?si=Hd185L4b
outu.be/2nqCfuLnSlM?si=Hd185L4bv07caGK
v07caGKt)
t)
Though one wouldn’t know it from “I Remember, I Remember” • Portr
ortraits
aits of Hood — See some portraits of Hood made not
or “Song of the Shirt,” Hood also loved humor and light verse. long before his untimely death. (https:/
(https://www
/www.npg.org.uk/
.npg.org.uk/
Over the course of his short life, he would edit several journals collections/search/person/mp128010/thomas-hood)
of comic writing, including Hood’s Monthly Magazine and Comic
Miscellany, The Gem, and the Comic Annual. LITCHARTS ON OTHER THOMAS HOOD POEMS
Next to “Song of the Shirt,” “I Remember, I Remember” is • The Song of the Shirt
perhaps Hood’s most famous poem, and recent writers like
Philip Larkin and Mary Ruefle have responded to it in verse and
prose. HOW T
TO
O CITE
HISTORICAL CONTEXT MLA
This nostalgic poem draws on Thomas Hood’s own experiences. Nelson, Kristin. "I Remember, I Remember." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC,
While Hood was born right in the middle of London on Poultry 9 Oct 2021. Web. 28 Jun 2024.
(a central street in the oldest part of town), his family moved to
Islington when he was small. Islington is now unequivocally CHICAGO MANUAL
urban, swallowed up by the expanding city. But when Hood was Nelson, Kristin. "I Remember, I Remember." LitCharts LLC, October
writing, it was still a leafy suburb surrounded by fields. It's this 9, 2021. Retrieved June 28, 2024. https://www.litcharts.com/
early home that Hood's speaker thinks of so wistfully here. poetry/thomas-hood/i-remember-i-remember.
The speaker's adult sorrows, sadly, are also Hood's own. Hood
always had troubles with his health, and the speaker’s mention

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