"Do not stand at my grave and weep" is the first line and popular title of the bereavement poem "Immortality", written by Clare Harner in 1934. Origins Kansas native Clare Harner (1909–1977) first published "Immortality" in the December 1934 issue of poetry magazine The Gypsy. It was written shortly after the sudden death of her brother. Harner's poem quickly gained traction as a eulogy and was read at funerals in Kansas and Missouri. It was soon reprinted in the Kansas City Times and the Kansas City Bar Bulletin. Harner earned a degree in journalism at Kansas State University. Several of her other poems were published and anthologized. She married a Marine named David Lyon, and appended his last name to hers. They moved to San Francisco where she continued to work as a journalist for Fairchild Fashion Media. Plagiarism The poem is often attributed to anonymous or incorrect sources, such as the Hopi and Navajo tribes. The most notable claimant was Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905–2004), who often handed out xeroxed copies of the poem with her name attached. She was first wrongly cited as the author of the poem in 1983. In her obituary, she asserted that her authorship was "undisputed" and confirmed by Dear Abby. However, Pauline Phillips and her daughter Jeanne Phillips, writing as Abigail van Buren, repeatedly confessed to their readers that they could not confirm who had written the popular poem. Original version Below is the version published in The Gypsy of December 1934 (page 16), under the title "Immortality" and followed by the author's name and location: "CLARE HARNER, Topeka, Kan." The indentation and line breaks are as given there. Other versions Other versions of the poem appeared later, usually without attribution, such as the one below. Differing words are shown in it by italics. The poem is twelve lines long, rhyming in couplets. Each line is in iambic tetrameter, except for lines five and seven, the fifth having an extra syllable, the seventh, two extra. In popular culture John Wayne read the poem "from an unspecified source" on December 29, 1977 at the memorial service for film director Howard Hawks. After hearing John Wayne's reading, script writer John Carpenter featured the poem in the 1979 television film Better Late Than Never. A common reading at funerals and remembrance ceremonies, the poem was introduced to many in the United Kingdom when it was read by