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Mary Elizabeth Frye (1904-2004)

Do not Stand at my Grave and Weep


Version 1 (revised by another hand?)


              1Do not stand at my grave and weep
              2I am not there. I do not sleep.
              3I am a thousand winds that blow
              4I am the diamond glints on snow.
              5I am the sunlight on ripened grain
              6I am the gentle autumn rain.
              7When you awaken in the morning's hush,
              8I am the swift uplifting rush
              9Of quiet birds in circled flight.
            10I am the soft stars that shine at night.
            11Do not stand at my grave and cry.
            12I am not there: I did not die

Version 2 (original?)


              1Do not stand at my grave and weep,
              2I am not there, I do not sleep.
              3I am a thousand winds that blow,
              4I am the softly falling snow.
              5I am the gentle showers of rain,
              6I am the fields of ripening grain.
              7I am in the morning hush,
              8I am in the graceful rush
              9Of beautiful birds in circling flight.
            10I am the starshine of the night.
            11I am in the flowers that bloom,
            12I am in a quiet room.
            13I am in the birds that sing,
            14I am in each lovely thing.
            15Do not stand at my grave and cry,
            16I am not there -- I do not die.

Notes

1] Version 1 may be what the Federal Printing Press produced as a postcard for Margaret Scharzkopf's parents' friends. It differs from Version 2, claimed by Frye in 2000 as her original, to judge by what she read from that for Kelly Ryan on the Ideas interview, lines 11-14 and the present tense "do" in line 16.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: (1) Version 1: unpublished, except as postcard, for which see "A Poetic Journey," Ideas (CBC Radio One, May 10, 2000). URL: http://www.radio.cbc.ca/programs/ideas/poetic_journey/ . The text of Frye's poem is taken from the postcard reproduced on this site, ca. 1932. (2) Version 2: Ideals Magazine (ca. 2000); reproduced at www.magicinterludes.net/snowyowlet/farewell.html (2001).
First publication date: 1932
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2002
Recent editing: 1:2002/8/16

Composition date: 1932
Form: couplets

Other poems by Mary Elizabeth Frye

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