Charlotte Mew's "Rooms" is a weary look back at a life of confinement and discontent. Its speaker recalls a series of rooms they've lived in, providing either no detail or gloomy details about each. The speaker remembers these rooms as places where "things died" and describes their current room, shared with a nameless partner, as a place where "we (two)" already feel dead. The poem becomes a study in melancholy and regret, as the speaker's living situation—and life—feels so oppressively confining that the grave seems like it can't be worse. "Rooms" was published posthumously in Mew's collection The Rambling Sailor (1929).

• Read the full text of “Rooms”

• “Rooms” Summary

• “Rooms” Themes

  • 

    The Unlived Life

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-10
  • 

    The Trap of Unhappiness

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-10

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Rooms”

  • Lines 1-2

    I remember rooms ...
    ... of the heart.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 3-5

    The room in ...
    ... of the tide—

    

    

    

    

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  • Line 6

         Rooms where ... for ill—things died.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 7-8

    But there is ...
    ... to sleep again

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 9-10

         As we ...
    ... sun—in the rain.

    

    

    

    

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• “Rooms” Symbols

  • 

    Rooms

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-10
  • 

    The Sea

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 4-5: “The little damp room with the seaweed smell, / And that ceaseless maddening sound of the tide—”

• “Rooms” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Parallelism

    

    

    

    

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    Where parallelism appears in the poem:

    • Lines 3-4: “The room in Paris, the room at Geneva, / The little damp room with the seaweed smell,”
    • Line 6: “for good,” “for ill”
    • Line 10: “in the sun—in the rain.”

  • Repetition

    

    

    

    

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    Where repetition appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “rooms”
    • Line 3: “The room,” “the room”
    • Line 4: “The,” “room”
    • Line 6: “Rooms”
    • Line 7: “room”
    • Line 8: “seem to,” “seem to”
    • Line 10: “in the,” “in the”

  • Imagery

    

    

    

    

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    Where imagery appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “the steady slowing down of the heart”
    • Lines 4-5: “The little damp room with the seaweed smell, / And that ceaseless maddening sound of the tide—”
    • Lines 9-10: “the other quieter, dustier bed /      Out there in the sun—in the rain.”

  • Alliteration

    

    

    

    

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    Where alliteration appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “remember rooms,” “have had”
    • Line 2: “steady slowing”
    • Line 4: “seaweed smell”
    • Line 5: “ceaseless,” “sound”
    • Line 7: “where we”
    • Line 8: “seem,” “seem,” “sleep”

  • Metaphor

    

    

    

    

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    Where metaphor appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “     In the steady slowing down of the heart.”
    • Line 7: “where we (two) lie dead,”
    • Lines 9-10: “the other quieter, dustier bed /      Out there in the sun—in the rain.”

  • Caesura

    

    

    

    

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    Where caesura appears in the poem:

    • Line 3: “Paris, the”
    • Line 6: “ill—things”
    • Line 9: “quieter, dustier”
    • Line 10: “sun—in”

  • Enjambment

    

    

    

    

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    Where enjambment appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-2: “part /      In”
    • Lines 8-9: “again /      As”
    • Lines 9-10: “bed /      Out”

• “Rooms” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Geneva
  • Ceaseless
  • Ill
  • (Location in poem: Line 3: “the room at Geneva”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Rooms”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Rooms” Speaker

• “Rooms” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Rooms”

• More “Rooms” Resources

  • External Resources

    • Charlotte Mew's Life and Work — A biography of the poet at the Poetry Foundation.

    • More About the Poet — A profile of Mew at the Modernist Archives Publishing Project.

    • The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of "Rooms."

    • More by Mew — Browse original editions of Mew's work at the Internet Archive.

    • A Meditation on Mew and More — An essay by Eavan Boland that reflects on Mew's life and "the definitions of a poet."

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Charlotte Mew

    • The Farmer's Bride

    • The Trees are Down

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