I’m going to preface this post by warning you all that it is a little sappy and sad. This poem, written by Mary Elizabeth Frye in 1932, has become a popular poem to be read at funerals. So…I apologize in advance for it being slightly morbid but it is probably my all-time favorite poem and it is just beautiful so ignore the sappiness for these wonderful twelve lines.
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
Wow…do you feel it? I get chills every time I read it. First off, the rhyme scheme and rhythm of this poem are in perfect harmony. There aren’t any awkward lines with too many or too few syllables, and the rhymes are simple but effective. She doesn’t use any complicated or fancy language; she sticks with simple words, maybe to stress that death is simple. The wind, the snow, the rain, the grain- they’re all simple but powerful elements.
Another reason why this is amazing: by the end of it, you want to cry. Or maybe that’s just me, which is really embarrassing but it’s the truth. The confidence of Frye’s tone in this poem comforts me so powerfully that I get caught up in all the emotion. Also a sad song came up on my iPod just now so maybe that’s a part of it. I have no idea. Tell me how you’re feeling by the last line!
Anyway, to sum up, this is poetic beauty in its purest form. It is divine, and I honestly am just in love with it. Next week, I’m thinking you’ll get to meet a really cool guy named William Carlos Williams (doesn’t he have an awesome name?!). Until then, enjoy the wonderfulness on your screen!
William Carlos Williams is the coolest! He was the one who was a doctor by day and poet by night, right?
I love the repetition in this poem. It works so well with the rhythm, just as the rhyme scheme that you mentioned does. I noticed all of the lines beside the first and 7th are iambic quadrameter. Any significance to that?
I also love the immediacy of the speaker’s voice in this poem. I think a lot of times poets can distance themselves through their work by virtue of the scrambled nature of words in poems. In this one however, the simplicity of the phrases makes it very direct, understandable and relatable.
Lovely poem – like you said it’s simplicity in all aspects (rhyme, content, length) makes it easy to take in and allows the message to be clear. I don’t really agree with it’s message that much, but I think its a very pretty, optimistic work to be read at a funeral and most times that’s what funeral needs, the opportunity to appreciate life and the life that was lost.
Baaah- I really love this! The rhyme scheme is really great and does every line a great deal of justice. The imagery that the writer providers her audience is fantastic, you can definitely see the images that she is present– but more importantly, you can feel what she is presenting.
Whenever a poet can take you to a place that you weren’t even imagining before, I believe that they have transformed their poem into a work of art. This piece definitely takes the audience away to many different places: a cemetery, all four seasons, nature, then back to the cemetery. Brilliant, brilliant imagery!
Also, that last line really makes an impact! I think that, if anything, that is perhaps the most emotionally charged moment in the entire poem. It brings the reader into the emotional state that most of us find ourselves in after grieving: acceptance. We have to accept that the person that we knew is not in that grave, and that body is not the person we knew at all but merely the vessel with which they moved about the world. The real individual lives on in the memories of the people that loved him or her, and perhaps in whatever form of afterlife you may believe in.