Lines 1-8 Summary

Lines 1-2

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;

• And… here we go. "Remember" opens with the speaker —let's just say she's a woman (since we don't have any evidence to the contrary at this point)—addressing somebody.
• She tells this mysterious person to remember her when she is gone away, "gone far away into the silent land."
• As you may have guessed, the speaker isn't talking about going to some far-away library. She's talking about death, but she's essentially using a euphemism. Death? Yikes. 
• Yes, she wants the person she's addressing to remember her after she's dead and gone. Now, so we don't have to keep writing "the person she's addressing," we're gonna go ahead and say that the speaker of this poem is addressing her lover, or boyfriend, or hubby, or whatever you wanna call it. 
• Getting back to business, or bid'ness, as we like to say, what's the deal with the "silent land" stuff?
• Do people not talk in the afterlife or something? Hmm, we're not really sure but here's some folks discussing the idea.
• It's probable that what the speaker really means here is that, after she dies, she will no longer be able to communicate with her beloved. Thus, the afterlife will be a "silent land," but in a different way. 
• Speaking of wanting to be remembered, we can't help remembering a bunch of other poems that Rossetti almost certainly read.
• To mention just one, our good buddy William Wordsworth once wrote a poem called "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey". 
• In that venerable lyrical masterpiece, Wordsworth imagines talking to his sister about his death and says, "If I should be where I can no more hear / Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams / Of past existence."
• We get lots of similarities here—death, remember me, more silent land business, etc., etc. Clearly Christina knew about the work of Willie W.
• Back to the poem: you may already know but this poem is a sonnet. Lots of sonnets are written in that most famous of English meters, iambic pentameter. From the looks of things, this poem is written in iambic pentameter as well. Head over to "Form and Meter" to read more on that stuff.
• Meanwhile, let's continue shall we?

Lines 3-4

When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

• Even though the speaker doesn't say "remember me" again, it is understood that she wants that little bit to carry over, so to speak.
• So, the speaker is telling her beloved to still remember her even when he can no longer ("no more") hold her hand.
• If we remember correctly, the repetition of the H sound there has a name. It's… wait, it's on the tip of our tongue… alliteration. What's so great about it? Check out "Sound Check" for the answer.
• The speaker also wants her pal to remember her when she can no longer start to leave, but then turn back.
• So, how did we get that out of "half turn to go yet turning stay"? It sure sounds like the speaker is recalling a common scenario. Let's say all those times when she would step out to go to the market or something. Whenever Ms. Speaker would start to leave, she would turn back. And why would she do that? To say goodbye? To catch one last glimpse of her beloved before leaving? Did she forget her car keys?
• Who knows for sure (it's probably not the car keys, since cars weren't around), but since she would always look back, it was really more like she was half-turning to go. Make sense?
• In other words, she would make to leave, but then—poof!—turn back a little bit.
• So, while half turning to leave, she would also be turning to stay.
• Part of the confusion here, obviously, has to do with the repetition of "turn": "half turn […] yet turning stay."
• It sounds all Shakespearean, with the cool alliteration the clever rhymes. 
• Wait, rhymes? We forgot to mention those. The first four lines of this poem follow this scheme: ABBA.
• Just from the looks of it, it seems we may be dealing with a sonnet of the Petrarchan variety here. 
• You can read more about this over at "Form and Meter" if you like, and if you're really curious about this Petrarch fellow, you can learn more about him here.

Lines 5-6

Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

• Well, just in case the speaker's beloved forgets that he's supposed to remember the speaker, she tells him again.
• She reminds him to remember when he is no longer able to tell her every day of the future he planned for them.
• Now these lines have the potential to be just a little, ahem, tricky. This is because the order of the words is just a teeny, itty, little bit funky—but only a little bit. 
• In normal conversation we would probably just say "remember me when you're no longer able to tell me day by day of the future you have planned for us." But then again, this isn't normal conversation. If this is your first foray into the wonderful world of English poetry, let us be the first to tell you that many times poets play games with the order of the words. Sometimes this is called by the oh-so-fancy term, inversion. 
• Why do they do this, because they have nothing better to do than make your life harder? No. Sometimes, it just sounds more poetic to rearrange the order of the words. Other times, words have to be fiddled with in order to make the meter work. 
• This is a very important consideration, you see. For many poets, Rossetti included, making sure the lines fit some specific metrical pattern is, well, of the utmost importance—the Utmost. You can read more about meter over at "Form and Meter."
• (Psst. If you want to see just how seriously and complicated metrical issues can be, check out this abstract of a scholarly article about Rossetti. And if you want to read just a little more about all these word order issues, go right here.)

Lines 7-8

Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.

• Well, shucks. Just in case the dude forgets, the speaker tells him to just remember her one more time. Let's see, that's 3 times now that the speaker has used the word "remember."
• We get it that the poem is called "Remember," but this is starting to seem a little funny. It's almost like the speaker is worried that the guy will not remember her if she doesn't keep telling him to do so.
• All this dude has to do is remember her because, by the time she's dead and gone, it will be too late to "counsel then or pray."
  Counsel then or pray? Counsel who and pray for what?
• Let's tackle this praying business first. It sure sounds to us like what she means is this: "by the time I'm dead and gone, it will be too darn late to pray for me to come back, and to pray for whatever else you want to pray for."
• Now, as for this "counsel" stuff: 'tis a bit puzzling indeed. Still, it seems that by "counsel" she means something like "counsel me." In other words, we could paraphrase what she means like so: "after I'm dead and gone it will be too late to counsel me—to make me feel better like you always used to do, babe."
• Okay, maybe she wouldn't say "babe," but this is pretty much the gist of "late to counsel." With us so far? Great— on we go.