Symbol Analysis
Time and memory are connected at the hip in "Remembrance." We really can't have one without the other, especially when dealing with loss and the grieving-turned-healing process. After all, it's not like we can snap our fingers and speed up the whole recovery part. Time is more of a kind of wave pulling us along that we can neither hurry up nor slow down.
- Lines 3-4: The speaker worries that time has cut off her remembrance—her ability to love her lover. Time is "all severing" which gives the impression that there's nothing we can really do about it when it comes to the human mind and memory.
- Lines 9-12: Nature is moving right along and so is time, but the speaker is still tied to her "spirit that remembers," despite all of those years of "change and suffering."
- Lines 14-15: The "world's tide" is always bringing new desires and hopes so we can imagine time as a constantly moving force that brings about change, whether we want it to or not.