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O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console to be understood as to understand to be loved as to love.įor it is in giving that we receive It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Where this is hatred, let me sow love Where there is injury, pardon Where there is doubt, faith Where there is despair, hope Where there is darkness, light And where there is sadness, joy. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. What for? Why? To the bereaved person it makes no sense at all. In the midst of grappling with loss it seems extraordinarily callous and cruel that the ordinary world keeps on going. To someone who hasn't experienced the death of a person very close to them, the poem might read as total hyperbole, a dramatic exaggeration. How can anything, or anyone, possibly go on? The world, and everything in it, should immediately stop or at least, go into mourning.
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The poem addresses the overwhelming enormity of the death of loved one. Click to watch that segment of Four Weddings and a Funeral on YouTube. Scottish actor, John Hannah, who played Matthew, read it at the funeral of his partner, Gareth.
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Your browser does not support the audio element.Įnglish poet W H Auden's poem Funeral Blues became extremely well known after it was featured in the 1994 film 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood For nothing now can ever come to any good. My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song I thought that love would last forever I was wrong. He was my North, my South, my East and West. Put crepe bows round the white necks of public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. That she is the author of the poem was confirmed in 1998 after investigative research by Abigail Van Buren, the newspaper columnist better known as "Dear Abby."įind out more here: Mary Elizabeth Frye: Poetry, Analysis and Biography
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After all, how could a Baltimore housewife, without a formal education, write one of the most popular poems in the English speaking world? One that is used in funeral services or on bereavement cards regardless of religion, race or social status? Who actually wrote it? Who for? And why was it never copyrighted?įor many years Mary Frye's authorship was questioned. I am there and vibrantly alive: an integral part of the ebb and flow of the natural world. Instead look to the beauty of nature, the seasons - the cycle of life. There is no need for you to come and stand by my grave and cry. It is as if they are speaking directly to someone who loved them dearly and is grieving. The poem takes on the voice of a person who has recently died. Interpreting Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep