Mary Elizabeth Frye (1904-)
Version 1 (revised by another hand?)
1 Do not stand at my grave and weep
2 I am not there. I do not sleep.
3 I am a thousand winds that blow
4 I am the diamond glints on snow.
5 I am the sunlight on ripened grain
6 I am the gentle autumn rain.
7 When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
8 I am the swift uplifting rush
9 Of quiet birds in circled flight.
10 I am the soft stars that shine at night.
11 Do not stand at my grave and cry.
12 I am not there: I did not die
Version 2 (original?)
1 Do not stand at my grave and weep,
2 I am not there, I do not sleep.
3 I am a thousand winds that blow,
4 I am the softly falling snow.
5 I am the gentle showers of rain,
6 I am the fields of ripening grain.
7 I am in the morning hush,
8 I am in the graceful rush
9 Of beautiful birds in circling flight.
10 I am the starshine of the night.
11 I am in the flowers that bloom,
12 I am in a quiet room.
13 I am in the birds that sing,
14 I am in each lovely thing.
15 Do not stand at my grave and cry,
16 I 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 © 2003, Ian Lancashire for the Department of English, University of Toronto.
Original text: (1) Version 1: unpublished, except as postcard, for which see “A Poetic Journey,” Ideas (CBC Radio One, May 10, 2000).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
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem2670.html