Do not stand at my grave and weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft
I am not there. I have not left.
- Mary Elizabeth Frye

This beautiful poem was written one day in 1932 by Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905 - 2004), a housewife and florist,  on a brown paper shopping bag. 


It was believed that Frye had never written any poems, but she was inspired by a young German Jewish woman, Margaret Schwarzkopf, who was staying with her and her husband. Margaret had been concerned about her mother, who was ill in Germany, but she had been warned not to return home because of increasing anti-semitic unrest. When her mother died, the heartbroken young woman told Frye that she never had the chance to “stand by my mother’s grave and shed a tear”. These words led to the birth of this famous poem, which has been recited at funerals and on other appropriate occasions around the world for seventy years.