The speaker in Mary Coleridge’s “To Memory” turns to the idea of memory itself and confronts it like a person—calling it a strange power, unsure if it’s a murderer or a lover. At first, memory feels like pure torment, stabbing the speaker repeatedly with painful recollections. They would rather face a direct blow from an enemy than this constant, wounding replay. Yet when the speaker tries to push memory away, it refuses to leave, instead offering a forgotten song and a ghost of a kiss so cherished that they would rather die than go without it. The poem swings between agony and deep attachment, capturing the way memory can hurt us over and over yet still hold moments we cling to. The mood is intimate and unsettled, full of breathless vulnerability—as if the speaker is whispering a painful secret about how fiercely they need the very thing that breaks them.
To Memory — Summary
Strange Power, I know not what thou art, Murderer or mistress of my heart. I know I'd rather meet the blow Of my most unrelenting foe Than live---as now I live---to be Slain twenty times a day by thee.
Yet, when I would command thee hence, Thou mockest at the vain pretence, Murmuring in mine ear a song Once loved, alas! forgotten long; And on my brow I feel a kiss That I would rather die than miss.