Ten Poems To Say Goodbye: A Journey of Farewell and Reflection

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Mary Elizabeth Frye

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 sunlight on ripened snow.

I am the gentle autumn rain. I am the stars that twinkle again.

Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die.

Elegy for Jane

Theodore Roethke

My Papa's Waltz The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself.

And then the music stopped. And left a stillness in the air, Except for one low moan. My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be

John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows with the magic hand of chance;