The Full Text of “Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)”
1Do not stand
2By my grave, and weep.
3I am not there,
4I do not sleep—
5I am the thousand winds that blow
6I am the diamond glints in snow
7I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
8I am the gentle, autumn rain.
9As you awake with morning's hush,
10I am the swift, up-flinging rush
11Of quiet birds in circling flight,
12I am the day transcending night.
13Do not stand
14By my grave, and cry—
15I am not there,
16I did not die.
-
“Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)” Introduction
-
The popular bereavement poem "Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)" presents death as a kind of transformation rather than an ending. The speaker declares, from beyond the grave, that they've become part of the natural world and now exist in its "winds," "snow," "rain," etc. As such, their loved ones shouldn't "weep" by their burial site, since the speaker isn't there. The poem's origins are disputed; while it's often attributed to Mary Elizabeth Frye, the poem's earliest known publication was in a 1934 issue of the poetry journal The Gypsy, which credited it to the American writer Clare Harner.
-
-
“Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)” Summary
-
The poem's speaker urges their loved ones not to mourn at their gravesite because they're not there. In fact, they're not asleep (a euphemism for being dead) at all.
Instead, the speaker says, they now exist in the countless breezes and in the glitter of snow. They're the sunlight falling on ripe crops and they're also the soft rain in autumn. When their loved ones wake up on still, quiet mornings, the speaker exists in the birds that quietly dart upward and circle around each other. The speaker is the daytime as it drives out the night.
The speaker again tells their loved ones not to bother coming to their tomb in tears; they don't lie there, because they aren't dead.
-
-
“Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)” Themes
-
Death, Transformation, and Immortality
"Immortality" argues that death isn't the ending that people think it is. The poem's speaker, who has died, tells their loved ones not to weep at their gravesite because they aren't there. In fact, they didn't really "die" at all; instead, the speaker says, death merely changed them into the "winds," "sunlight," "rain," "birds," and so on. In other words, though death means the end of their human form, the speaker lives on in the natural world. In this way, the poem suggests that death is a transformation rather than an ending—and as such, that human beings are essentially immortal.
Though the speaker's body has been laid to rest in a physical "grave," they want their loved ones to know that this isn't where their spirit resides. "Do not stand by my grave, and weep," the poem begins, with the speaker explaining that they're "not there" nor do they "sleep" (a euphemism for death). Though their body might be in the ground, their true essence lives on.
The speaker then lists the various shapes their spirit now takes, illustrating how they've found a kind of freedom and immortality through death. Now that their spirit has left their body, the speaker says, they've become "the thousand winds that blow." This suggests that the speaker exists everywhere at once. Like "the thousand winds," they move across the world in every direction, invisible yet always present.
They're also "the diamond glints in snow," "sunlight on ripened grain," and "gentle, autumn rain." These sweet, pleasant images imply that the speaker has become part of the natural world and its cycles. Just as "the day transcend[s] night," the speaker has, through dying, "transcend[ed]" their individual, finite human form and become something much richer and lasting.
Because of this, the speaker sees no reason why their loved ones should grieve—after all, they haven’t really been parted. The speaker encourages their loved ones to pay attention to the world around them, as it contains endless proof of their "immortality." When their loved ones wake up in the still of the "morning[]," the speaker says, "the swift, up-flinging rush / of quiet birds in circling flight" is a reminder that the speaker is still present in every moment.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
-
-
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)”
-
Lines 1-4
Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep—The poem begins with the speaker telling the reader "not [to] stand" next to their "grave, and weep." Right away, then, the reader knows that the speaker is someone who has died and been buried but doesn't want their loved ones to mourn at their gravesite.
That's because, the speaker continues, they're "not there" and they "do not sleep." "Sleep" is a euphemism for death here. The speaker is saying that while their body might be in the ground, their true self (their soul, essence, spirit, etc.) is not—and, indeed, is still awake and alive.
The use of anaphora in these opening lines (the repetition of "I") creates a sense of momentum that carries the reader forward. It also makes the speaker's statement sound more insistent and confident.
Note that this poem has been published in various forms throughout its history. We're using the earliest known published version, which includes line breaks after "stand" and "there." Later versions often omit these line breaks, however, which makes sense when readers consider that they sound like two iambic tetrameter couplets when read aloud:
Do not stand by my grave, and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep—Iambic tetrameter means the lines consist of four iambs (poetic units with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern). Right away, though, the poem uses some variations on this meter. The first foot here scans most naturally as a spondee (two stressed beats in a row) and the second as a trochee (the opposite of an iamb, stressed-unstressed). As a result, that opening "Do not stand" sounds much more forceful and emphatic:
Do not | stand by | my grave, | and weep.
I am | not there, | I do | not sleep—The general iambic rhythm, meanwhile, lends the poem a steady, familiar sound that's appropriate for a poem meant to offer comfort.
-
Lines 5-8
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
Unlock all 338 words of this analysis of Lines 5-8 of “Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep),” and get the Line-by-Line Analysis for every poem we cover.
Plus so much more...
Get LitCharts A+ -
Lines 9-11
As you awake with morning's hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight, -
Line 12
I am the day transcending night.
-
Lines 13-16
Do not stand
By my grave, and cry—
I am not there,
I did not die.
-
-
“Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Anaphora
The poem uses quite a lot of anaphora (and general parallelism), which lends rhythm and insistence to the speaker's argument.
The speaker starts more than half of the poem's lines with the word "I," in fact, calling readers' attention again and again to their presence. Take lines 3-4:
I am not there,
I do not sleep—The poem's end then choices these lines:
I am not there,
I did not die.All this repetition conveys the fact that the speaker hasn't disappeared from the world in death. They're just as present on the earth as they are in this poem.
The speaker repeats the longer phrase "I am the" in lines 5-8, 10, and 12. Again, this emphasizes the idea that the speaker still exists, that they still "are." All of this repetition also simply makes the poem feel very declarative and confident. Listen to the anaphora in lines 5-8, for example:
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.The speaker is emphatic about their transformation. Thanks to all this anaphora, the poem feels powerfully self-assured.
- See where this poetic device appears in the poem.
-
Consonance
Unlock all 188 words of this analysis of Consonance in “Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep),” and get the poetic device analyses for every poem we cover.
Plus so much more...
Get LitCharts A+ -
Imagery
-
End-Stopped Line
-
-
“Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)” 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.
- Diamond glints
- Swift
- Up-flinging rush
- Transcending
Diamond glints-
The speaker is comparing themselves to the glitter of snow in the sunlight.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)”
-
Form
"Immortality" consists of eight rhyming couplets, each of which uses iambic tetrameter (a meter consisting of eight syllables per line written in da-DUM stress pattern):
I am the thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints in snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.That said, there are various versions of "Immortality" floating around that format the poem somewhat differently on the page. This guide uses the 1934 version of the poem, which is its earliest known publication and is attributed to Clare Harner.
This version breaks the poem into three distinct stanzas: the lines beginning with "Do not stand [...]" are set apart from the body of the poem ("I am the [...] transcending night."), acting as bookends for the speaker's descriptions of the natural world.
The 1934 version also breaks the opening and closing couples apart, stretching these stanzas across four lines instead of two:
Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep—Of course, the poem is very often printed as follows, collapsing those to reflect how they sound when actually read aloud:
Do not stand by my grave, and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep—Formatting aside, these clear, steady couplets make the poem feel predictable and soothing, like a lullaby for the broken-hearted. It also makes it easy to memorize, which has undoubtedly contributed to its popularity as a bereavement poem.
-
Meter
The poem is written in iambic tetrameter. An iamb is a metrical foot containing an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (da-DUM), and tetrameter means there are four of these feet per line. For example, here's line 5:
I am | the thou- | sand winds | that blow
Iambic tetrameter infuses the speaker's words with a soothing, predictable rhythm.
Most of the poem's lines are in perfect iambic pentameter, although there are a couple of exceptions, such as line 7, which has an extra stressed syllable in the second foot:
I am | the sunlight | on ri- | pened grain,
This extra syllable throws off the rhythm of the line slightly, but not enough to impact the overall musicality of the poem.
Note that while lines 1-4 and 13-16 look like quatrains (at least in this particular printed version of the poem), they read as tetrameter couplets, just like the rest of the poem. If readers were to compress lines 1-4 into two lines and then scan them, for example, they would look like this:
Do not | stand by | my grave, | and weep.
I am | not there, | I do | not sleep—As readers can see, the lines then fall into rhyming, mostly iambic, tetrameter. The only exceptions are the first two feet, which consist of a spondee ("Do not") followed by a trochee ("stand by") rather than iambs.
This starts the poem on an emphatic note—the speaker is commanding their loved ones not to grieve for them.
-
Rhyme Scheme
The poem consists of rhyming couplets: AA BB CC and so on.
This steady rhyme scheme adds to the poem's comforting, predictable music. The rhymes themselves are all clear and simple; the poet uses full, single-syllable rhymes ("blow" and "snow," "grain" and "rain," etc.) rather than more subtle slant rhymes. This makes the poem more melodic and memorable.
Again, the rhyme scheme looks a little different on the page depending on which version of the poem readers have in front of them. In the 1934 text, lines 1-4 and 13-16 appear to follow an ABCB rhyme scheme; it takes reading the poem out loud to discover that these lines are really just two tetrameter couplets broken in half:
Do not stand
By my grave, and weep.
I am not there,
I do not sleep—
-
-
“Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)” Speaker
-
The poem's speaker is someone who has died and been buried (given that they tell their listener not to stand at their "grave"). The poem doesn't offer any specifics about this person's life; those specifics, now that the speaker has died, seem rather beside the point. The speaker's anonymity makes the poem less about them and more about the nature of death itself. (The speaker's anonymity is also a big reason why this poem has become such a popular reading at funerals; its message can apply to anyone.)
The speaker insists that they didn't really "die" at all. This is because, though their body has ceased to exist, their true essence—their soul—has transformed into "winds," "glints in snow," "sunlight on ripened grain," and so on. In other words, this speaker believes that death isn't really the end; they have simply become part of the natural world. For this reason, the speaker doesn't want their loved ones to mourn their passing.
-
-
“Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)” Setting
-
The poem doesn't have a specific setting. Though the speaker has died and been buried, their "grave" could be anywhere, at any time. And as the speaker describes the transformation they've gone through—death transforming them into "winds," "birds," etc.—the poem avoids any concrete locations.
The poem's lack of setting is fitting, as the poem essentially argues that through death, people "transcend[]" their human lives and become part of the natural world. They are no longer small and individual; they are everything and everywhere.
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)”
Literary Context
The first known version of "Immortality" was published in a 1934 issue of The Gypsy, a poetry journal based in Ohio. The poem was submitted by Clare Harner, a journalist and poet from Kansas.
However, the poem's authorship and origins have been widely disputed in the years since. In 1983, Mary Elizabeth Frye, a florist from Baltimore, Maryland, claimed to have written the poem, under the title "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep"; Harner died in 1977 and thus couldn't dispute Frye's claim. Frye is still commonly cited as the poem's author, though the poem is also often attributed to an anonymous writer. It's even been misattributed to Emily Dickinson! Harner, however, remains the most credible source, given that she wrote and published other poems that bear a resemblance to "Immortality."
There are various versions of the poem out there as well, featuring different line and stanza breaks as well as slightly different wording ("at my grave" vs. "by my grave" and "a thousand winds" vs. "the thousand winds"). You can read a few of these versions here, here, and here.
In any case, "Immortality," in some version or another, remains a common bereavement poem. John Wayne famously recited it at the 1977 funeral of the director Howard Hawkes. The father of a soldier killed in Northern Ireland also read the poem on BBC radio in 1995, having found the text among his son's belongings.
Other famous bereavement poems include "Because I could not stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson, "Funeral Blues" by W.H. Auden, and "To Sleep" by John Keats. In content, theme, and even imagery, "Immortality" bears a resemblance to Christina Rosetti's "When I am dead, my dearest."
Historical Context
Because the poem's origins are so uncertain, there's no saying exactly what was going on when and where it was written. There's nothing in the poem to tie it to one place or time, which is what makes it so enduringly popular.
That said, Clare Harner likely wrote the poem (or at least the first published version of the poem) after her brother's death in 1932. This would have been right in the middle of the Great Depression, a time of immense economic hardship for millions of people across the U.S. and the world. Those who lived in the Dust Bowl (including Kansas, where Harner was from) were particularly impacted by the effects of the Depression due to a series of terrible droughts in the 1930s.
Though the poem doesn't reference any of this, it's worth thinking about how these conditions might have impacted the public's reception of such a simple and comforting poem about death.
-
More “Immortality (Do not stand at my grave and weep)” Resources
-
External Resources
-
A Reading of the Poem — Listen to a slightly different version of the poem read aloud.
-
The First Publication of the Poem — View the issue of The Gypsy in which "Immortality" was first printed.
-
The Mysterious Origins of "Immortality" — An article about the poem's contested authorship.
-
Who Was Clare Harner? — A whole blog dedicated to Clare Harner, the Kansas journalist to whom authorship of the poem was attributed in 1934.
-
-
