Poetry · Chapter
Rappelle-Toi explained
A poetic meditation on remembrance and enduring love, rendered from Alfred de Musset's French original.
What happens
A poetic meditation on remembrance and enduring love, rendered from Alfred de Musset's French original. The speaker implores a beloved to remember them through all seasons of life—dawn, night, joy, sorrow, and even after death—promising that true love transcends absence, time, and the grave.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Sacrifice
The speaker's loyal love persists through separation, sorrow, and death, culminating in a soul that lingers to recite a litany of love.
Grief and Memory
The entire poem is structured around the act of remembering, from the 'timid light' of dawn to the 'cool, dark tomb,' emphasizing memory as a bridge across loss.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“Remember, when the timid light Through the enchanted hall of dawn is gleaming; Remember, when the pensive night Beneath her silver-sprinkled veil walks dreaming;”
Recall me at dawn's first gentle glow and at night's quiet, starry dreaming.
The speaker asks to be remembered in both the hopeful morning and the reflective evening.
“Think of my loyal love, my last adieu; Absence and time are naught, if we are true;”
Remember my faithful love and final farewell; distance and years mean nothing if we remain faithful.
The speaker asserts that true love conquers separation and the passage of time.
“Ah then, my face thou nevermore shalt see, But still my soul will linger close to thee, And in the holy place of night, The litany of love recite— Remember!”
Though you will never see my face again, my spirit will stay near you, whispering a prayer of love in the sacred night—remember!
Even after death, the speaker's soul remains devoted, reciting a litany of love in the darkness.