Mementos
ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves
Of cabinets, shut up for years,
What a strange task we've set ourselves !
How still the lonely room appears !
How strange this mass of ancient treasures,
Mementos of past pains and pleasures;
These volumes, clasped with costly stone,
With print all faded, gilding gone;
These fans of leaves, from Indian trees
These crimson shells, from Indian seas
These tiny portraits, set in rings
Once, doubtless, deemed such precious things;
Keepsakes bestowed by Love on Faith,
And worn till the receiver's death,
Now stored with cameos, china, shells,
In this old closet's dusty cells.
I scarcely think, for ten long years,
A hand has touched these relics old;
And, coating each, slow-formed, appears,
The growth of green and antique mould.
All in this house is mossing over;
All is unused, and dim, and damp;
Nor light, nor warmth, the rooms discover
Bereft for years of fire and lamp.
The sun, sometimes in summer, enters
The casements, with reviving ray;
But the long rains of many winters
Moulder the very walls away.
And outside all is ivy, clinging
To chimney, lattice, gable grey;
Scarcely one little red rose springing
Through the green moss can force its way.
Unscared, the daw, and starling nestle,
Where the tall turret rises high,
And winds alone come near to rustle
The thick leaves where their cradles lie.
I sometimes think, when late at even
I climb the stair reluctantly,
Some shape that should be well in heaven,
Or ill elsewhere, will pass by me.
I fear to see the very faces,
Familiar thirty years ago,
Even in the old accustomed places
Which look so cold and gloomy now.
I've come, to close the window, hither,
At twilight, when the sun was down,
And Fear, my very soul would wither,
Lest something should be dimly shown.
Too much the buried form resembling,
Of her who once was mistress here;
Lest doubtful shade, or moonbeam trembling,
Might take her aspect, once so dear.
Hers was this chamber; in her time
It seemed to me a pleasant room,
For then no cloud of grief or crime
Had cursed it with a settled gloom;
I had not seen death's image laid
In shroud and sheet, on yonder bed.
Before she married, she was blest
Blest in her youth, blest in her worth;
Her mind was calm, its sunny rest
Shone in her eyes more clear than mirth.
And when attired in rich array,
Light, lustrous hair about her brow,
She yonder sata kind of day
Lit upwhat seems so gloomy now.
These grim oak walls, even then were grim;
That old carved chair, was then antique;
But what around looked dusk and dim
Served as a foil to her fresh cheek;
Her neck, and arms, of hue so fair,
Eyes of unclouded, smiling, light;
Her soft, and curled, and floating hair,
Gems and attire, as rainbow bright.
Reclined in yonder deep recess,
Ofttimes she would, at evening, lie
Watching the sun; she seemed to bless
With happy glance the glorious sky.
She loved such scenes, and as she gazed,
Her face evinced her spirit's mood;
Beauty or grandeur ever raised
In her, a deep-felt gratitude.
But of all lovely things, she loved
A cloudless moon, on summer night;
Full oft have I impatience proved
To see how long, her still delight
Would find a theme in reverie.
Out on the lawn, or where the trees
Let in the lustre fitfully,
As their boughs parted momently,
To the soft, languid, summer breeze.
Alas ! that she should e'er have flung
Those pure, though lonely joys away
Deceived by false and guileful tongue,
She gave her hand, then suffered wrong;
Oppressed, ill-used, she faded young,
And died of grief by slow decay.
Open that casketlook how bright
Those jewels flash upon the sight;
The brilliants have not lost a ray
Of lustre, since her wedding day.
But seeupon that pearly chain
How dim lies time's discolouring stain !
I've seen that by her daughter worn:
For, e'er she died, a child was born;
A child that ne'er its mother knew,
That lone, and almost friendless grew;
For, ever, when its step drew nigh,
Averted was the father's eye;
And then, a life impure and wild
Made him a stranger to his child;
Absorbed in vice, he little cared
On what she did, or how she fared.
The love withheld, she never sought,
She grew uncherishedlearnt untaught;
To her the inward life of thought
Full soon was open laid.
I know not if her friendlessness
Did sometimes on her spirit press,
But plaint she never made.
The book-shelves were her darling treasure,
She rarely seemed the time to measure
While she could read alone.
And she too loved the twilight wood,
And often, in her mother's mood,
Away to yonder hill would hie,
Like her, to watch the setting sun,
Or see the stars born, one by one,
Out of the darkening sky.
Nor would she leave that hill till night
Trembled from pole to pole with light;
Even then, upon her homeward way,
Longlong her wandering steps delayed
To quit the sombre forest shade,
Through which her eerie pathway lay.
You ask if she had beauty's grace ?
I know notbut a nobler face
My eyes have seldom seen;
A keen and fine intelligence,
And, better still, the truest sense
Were in her speaking mien.
But bloom or lustre was there none,
Only at moments, fitful shone
An ardour in her eye,
That kindled on her cheek a flush,
Warm as a red sky's passing blush
And quick with energy.
Her speech, too, was not common speech,
No wish to shine, or aim to teach,
Was in her words displayed:
She still began with quiet sense,
But oft the force of eloquence
Came to her lips in aid;
Language and voice unconscious changed,
And thoughts, in other words arranged,
Her fervid soul transfused
Into the hearts of those who heard,
And transient strength and ardour stirred,
In minds to strength unused.
Yet in gay crowd or festal glare,
Grave and retiring was her air;
'Twas seldom, save with me alone,
That fire of feeling freely shone;
She loved not awe's nor wonder's gaze,
Nor even exaggerated praise,
Nor even notice, if too keen
The curious gazer searched her mien.
Nature's own green expanse revealed
The world, the pleasures, she could prize;
On free hill-side, in sunny field,
In quiet spots by woods concealed,
Grew wild and fresh her chosen joys,
Yet Nature's feelings deeply lay
In that endowed and youthful frame;
Shrined in her heart and hid from day,
They burned unseen with silent flame;
In youth's first search for mental light,
She lived but to reflect and learn,
But soon her mind's maturer might
For stronger task did pant and yearn;
And stronger task did fate assign,
Task that a giant's strength might strain;
To suffer long and ne'er repine,
Be calm in frenzy, smile at pain.
Pale with the secret war of feeling,
Sustained with courage, mute, yet high;
The wounds at which she bled, revealing
Only by altered cheek and eye;
She bore in silencebut when passion
Surged in her soul with ceaseless foam,
The storm at last brought desolation,
And drove her exiled from her home.
And silent still, she straight assembled
The wrecks of strength her soul retained;
For though the wasted body trembled,
The unconquered mind, to quail, disdained.
She crossed the seanow lone she wanders
By Seine's, or Rhine's, or Arno's flow;
Fain would I know if distance renders
Relief or comfort to her woe.
Fain would I know if, henceforth, ever,
These eyes shall read in hers again,
That light of love which faded never,
Though dimmed so long with secret pain.
She will return, but cold and altered,
Like all whose hopes too soon depart;
Like all on whom have beat, unsheltered,
The bitter blasts that blight the heart.
No more shall I behold her lying
Calm on a pillow, smoothed by me;
No more that spirit, worn with sighing,
Will know the rest of infancy.
If still the paths of lore she follow,
'Twill be with tired and goaded will;
She'll only toil, the aching hollow,
The joyless blank of life to fill.
And oh ! full oft, quite spent and weary,
Her hand will pause, her head decline;
That labour seems so hard and dreary,
On which no ray of hope may shine.
Thus the pale blight of time and sorrow
Will shade with grey her soft, dark hair
Then comes the day that knows no morrow,
And death succeeds to long despair.
So speaks experience, sage and hoary;
I see it plainly, know it well,
Like one who, having read a story,
Each incident therein can tell.
Touch not that ring, 'twas his, the sire
Of that forsaken child;
And nought his relics can inspire
Save memories, sin-defiled.
I, who sat by his wife's death-bed,
I, who his daughter loved,
Could almost curse the guilty dead,
For woes, the guiltless proved.
And heaven did cursethey found him laid,
When crime for wrath was rife,
Coldwith the suicidal blade
Clutched in his desperate gripe.
'Twas near that long deserted hut,
Which in the wood decays,
Death's axe, self-wielded, struck his root,
And lopped his desperate days.
You know the spot, where three black trees,
Lift up their branches fell,
And moaning, ceaseless as the seas,
Still seem, in every passing breeze,
The deed of blood to tell.
They named him mad, and laid his bones
Where holier ashes lie;
Yet doubt not that his spirit groans,
In hell's eternity.
But, lo ! night, closing o'er the earth,
Infects our thoughts with gloom;
Come, let us strive to rally mirth,
Where glows a clear and tranquil hearth
In some more cheerful room.
Literary Analysis
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Summary
Charlotte Brontë sets the poem in a shuttered, half-abandoned room where old keepsakes have gathered dust and mildew. The physical setting becomes a trigger for memory: drawers, cabinets, jewelry, portraits, and letters all survive as relics of lives marked by love, suffering, and loss. What begins as an act of sorting mementos turns into a meditation on what remains after time has worked on people, buildings, and emotions alike.
The poem's central voice is intimate and haunted. The person speaking seems to know the house, the dead mistress of the room, her daughter, and the violent man whose guilt shadows the whole place. As the meditation deepens, the poem moves from still objects to living memory, then to family tragedy, moral judgment, and fear of repetition. The speaker cannot separate tenderness from dread: the dead woman is remembered with affection, yet her story is bound up with betrayal, decay, and the speaker's conviction that suffering can pass from one generation to the next. That tension gives the poem its force, because remembrance here is both an act of love and a burden that darkens the present.
Theme
- Memory and relics - The poem shows how objects preserve the emotional residue of a life. Keepsakes, jewelry, books, and portraits become proof that the past is still present, even when the people attached to them are gone.
- Decay and time - The house, the room, and the stored objects all show signs of rot, dust, and dimming. Brontë uses physical deterioration to suggest how time erases comfort, beauty, and certainty.
- Female suffering - The remembered mistress and her daughter are both marked by endurance rather than triumph. Their lives suggest the quiet, often hidden cost of betrayal, grief, and emotional neglect.
- Inheritance and repetition - The daughter seems to echo her mother in temperament and habits, implying that grief, vulnerability, and solitude can be passed down along with memories and likenesses.
- Moral judgment - The poem does not treat wrongdoing as abstract. The guilty father's life and death are presented with fierce condemnation, showing how deeply the speaker connects moral failure with lasting ruin.
- Nature as consolation and witness - Sunlight, moonlight, trees, and the landscape outside the house offer beauty, but they also stand as silent witnesses to human pain. Nature holds a mixed power: it comforts, yet it also records loss.
- Isolation - The empty rooms, the friendless child, and the speaker's nighttime fear all reinforce a world of separation. Emotional loneliness shapes both the household and the poem's atmosphere.
Literary Devices
- Imagery - Brontë fills the poem with tactile and visual details such as dust, mould, ivy, moonlight, and faded gilding. These images make memory feel material and show decline in a vivid, physical way.
- Enjambment - Lines often run onward without a pause, carrying the reader through recollection as if thought itself cannot stop. This movement suits the poem's drifting, associative structure.
- Repetition - Words and phrases about strangeness, sorrow, silence, and coldness recur throughout the poem. The repetition reinforces the sense of a place trapped in the afterlife of memory.
- Contrast - The poem sharply contrasts former brightness with present gloom, youth with age, beauty with decay, and warmth with abandonment. These oppositions are central to its emotional impact.
- Personification - The house, the rooms, the walls, and even night feel active or watchful at times. This makes the setting seem inhabited by memory and moral judgment.
- Symbolic setting - The abandoned chamber is more than a location; it functions as a mental and emotional space where the past keeps returning. The room mirrors the speaker's inner experience.
- Alliteration - Brontë uses clustered sounds to slow the poem and sharpen its atmosphere, especially in passages describing moss, mould, moonlight, and mournful places. The sound pattern helps create a hushed, lingering tone.
- List structure - The accumulation of objects, traits, and memories builds pressure gradually. The lists make the house feel crowded with remnants of life, even while it remains empty of living presence.
Symbolism
- The locked drawers and shelves - These suggest sealed memory and the human urge to keep the past hidden but not lost.
- The mould and moss - They symbolize the slow, unavoidable invasion of time over both houses and hearts.
- The ivy-covered house - The clinging ivy suggests persistence, entanglement, and the way memory wraps around the dead past.
- The wedding jewels - They stand for promised happiness that has not survived the marriage's betrayal and suffering.
- The daughter's books - They symbolize inward life, solitude, and a mind that had to develop without affection.
- The setting sun and moonlight - These recurring lights mark moments of reflection, beauty, and the boundary between peace and unease.
- The deserted hut in the wood - It functions as a grim emblem of guilt, exile, and the hidden ruin left by violence.
Tone
Brontë's tone is elegiac, reflective, and increasingly severe as the poem moves from recollection to judgment. She remembers the dead with tenderness, but she also speaks with the certainty of someone who has watched suffering deepen into ruin. The mood for the reader is hushed and uneasy: the poem begins in stillness, becomes mournful, and finally acquires a bleak, almost haunted intensity as guilt, decay, and fear gather around the remembered household.
Historical Context
Brontë wrote within the Victorian tradition of domestic, psychological, and gothic-inflected poetry, where interiors often become mirrors of inner life. Her poem shares that era's concern with memory, moral seriousness, female vulnerability, and the emotional weight of household spaces. The blending of elegy, narrative, and haunted atmosphere also reflects the period's fascination with ruins, relics, and the aftereffects of private tragedy.
The poem's emphasis on women's constrained lives and on the damage done by male betrayal fits broad nineteenth-century literary concerns, even when the exact story remains personal and imagined. Its attention to interior decay and family suffering also connects it to a wider Romantic and post-Romantic inheritance, in which landscape and weather often echo the condition of the soul.