“I Remember, I Remember" by Thomas Hood is a nostalgic poem that explores the speaker's

memories of his childhood, contrasting the joy and innocence of youth with the weight of
adulthood. The speaker reminisces about specific moments, like his birth house, the vibrant
garden, and the carefree feeling of swinging, highlighting the beauty and simplicity of his
past. He contrasts these idyllic childhood memories with the harsh realities of adulthood, where
he feels burdened and wishes for the night to end his suffering.

• Childhood Memories:
The poem begins with the speaker recalling his birth house, particularly the little window
where he would see the morning sun shine. He also remembers the vibrant garden with roses,
violets, and a tree planted by his brother.

• Carefree Innocence:
He remembers the joy of swinging, feeling like his spirit was free and light. He also evokes the
natural world around him, suggesting a blissful connection to nature.

• Contrast with Adulthood:

The poem shifts to the speaker's current state, where he feels burdened by worries and the
weight of adulthood. He expresses a longing for the ease and simplicity of his childhood,
contrasting it with the complexities of his current life.
• Nostalgia and Loss:
The poem's overall tone is one of bittersweet nostalgia, as the speaker reflects on the lost
innocence and joy of his childhood. He feels a sense of distance from the paradise he once
knew.

Poetic Devices

Repetition
The poem’s repetitions bring its themes of nostalgia and memory to center stage, starting from
the very first line: “I remember, I remember.”
That sense of helplessness only gets stronger when this already repetitive phrase becomes
a refrain. Every stanza of the poem begins with those same two words, keeping memory always
in front of the speaker’s (and the reader’s) eyes. Remembering childhood, all these repetitions
suggest, might be just as painful as it’s comforting: the chant-like repetition of “I remember, I
remember” hints that the speaker can’t look away from thoughts of happier days.

Imagery
Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. The visual imagery
in the poem is
“The house where I was born….
The fir trees dark and high….
The sun came peeing in at the morn…”
Metaphor
There is only one metaphor used in the last stanza of the poem----“tis little joy”. The speaker
metaphorically compares his present state with his colourful childhood. Those flowers were
made of light. Those flowers refer to the flowers in the garden of childhood memories.
Childhood was a time when memories (flowers) were light i.e. delicate and colourful as they
reflected the entire spectrum of light.

Simile
When the poet as a child would be swinging high he would feel the same rush of the air as flying
swallows.

Personification
The sun is personified as a force for good within the poem. ‘He” is presented as a friendly
character who seems to do everything to a level of perfection.
“Never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day”
The sun stands for the permanence, predictability and regularity of life during his childhood. The
cyclic routine of the sun was reassuring and comforting to the child.

Symbolism
The harsh reality of adulthood is contrasted against the fore grounded beauty of childhood. In the
first stanza, ‘night’ represents ‘death’. Also the sun rising rhythmically so that there is balance
between night and day symbolizes perfect balance in the childhood.
In the next stanza, Hood can imagine the flowers and see them, yet they are not real, merely flits
of light within his own depressing life. Perhaps the only thing keeping him from death is ‘light’
from hi*s memories of childhood, his love for that era driving him to continue.
Hood evokes contrast between the lightness of youth and ‘heavy’ nature of the present. ‘So
heavy now’ concisely compounds Hood’s sentiment throughout the poem into three words. ‘He
has lost that sense of ‘childhood joy and freedom. ‘Now’ he is stuck. ‘so heavy’ and living only
for a nostalgic break into the past. The tragedy in this poem is subtle, but continuous. Hood
mourns for all he no longer is or has.

Setting
This poem seems to take place almost entirely in the speaker's memories of his childhood home.
He thinks back fondly on the "house where [he] was born," a place that (to his nostalgic mind)
seemed like an earthly paradise.
As a child , he everyday watched the sun which was never late to visit him each morning.
His connect with nature is seen through a beautiful garden in his house with a variety of flowers
such as roses, violets, llily-cups and lilacs—those flowers made of light. The garden looked
colourful ‘red and white’ with robin’s nest in the lilacs. There was a laburnum tree that his
brother had planted on his birthday and which still stood there as a memento of his childhood
days. It appeared to him like a living remnant of the past that he had lost.
Besides the garden had a swing where the poet, as a child, would swing high and believed he
flew like the swallows. The house had summer pools where he dipped to cool himself.
The house was surrounded by tall fir trees and like an innocent child believed that the trees
touched the sky.

“The fir trees dark and high:

I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky”

Each and every memory of his childhood reminds him that he would not be able to return to his
childhood and so is doomed to live. Thus the setting of the poem can be defined as a perfect
setting that exposes the intimate memories of the poet and takes the reader along for his nostalgic
journey into the childhood and ends with his present stage away from nature and full of drudgery
of adult life.

Extract based questions:

“I remember,I remember,
The roses , red and white……..
…..The tree is living yet”

(i) What does “flowers made of light” mean?

(ii) What does the building of its nest by a robin in the lilacs suggest? How is the poet affected
by its absence now?
(iii) What memories does he have of his brother? Which ‘tree’ is living? What does this signify?
(iv) Briefly describe the garden of the poet’s childhood.
(v) Give the meaning of:
(a) The roses, red and white
(b) Where my brother set/ The laburnum

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