The Detroit times., 1916-06-14
The Poets Will.
BY Or. FRANK CRANE
Copyright. 1915. ~ Frank Crane)

haven't anything to leave in my last
will and testament, said the poet, except
my body.
| haven't any money, nor any goods,
except a few things in my trunk, and
anybody may have them that wants
| them.
AS for my soul, and my influence. and
all that sort of thing, they are too
elusive for the ownership of men; God
will look after them.
But have notions concerning my
body. | ask my friends to dispose of
that according to my wishes 1t may be
but a whim, but I'm tenacious about it,
and if my relations give me conven-
tional funeral and burial | will haunt
them, if l become one of those ghosts
that are allowed to haunt.
don't want regular funeral. don't
want my body laid out and people look
ing at my dead face. don't want a
hearse, nor hired carriages for the
funeral party to ride in, nor a process
| sion to the cemetery.
| hate cemeteries, where there is the
same class distinction in tombstones
there is in the residences on Main street.
have always believed in democracy, the
absolute holiness Of the common, and if
| have not been able to attain unto it
living, / should like to dead.
Therefore please have my body Gre
mated. Take the ashes and enclose them
in an earthen urn. Keep them until
there comes a warm, sunshiny day in
summer or spring.
Then if there can be found few who
loved me, and felt my presence on earth
enough to be sorry am gone, let some
one who loved me a great deal call them
together, and let them all go out into
some open place where the grass is
green and there are trees, and flowers
are springing, and wild birds flying
about.
There let them sit on the warm grass
and eat and drink, not stolidly and with
gloom, but with sacramento JOY, for
that they know they are pleasing me,
and my spirit is in their midst
Let them tell some of the good stories
| used to tell, for have always loved
merry tale with laugh at the end And
let them recall the kind and unselfsh
acts | performed, if they can think of
any.
Then when evening falls let some one
open my urn, and, taking my ashes in
handfulS, let him SOW them in silence to
the wind, so that some shall fall on the
earth and some on the flowers and trees,
and some be dust upon the clothing, and
some be blown away.
So when men shall ask for my grave
it shall be said, Earth, air, meadow, and
all living things are his grave. You will
find his spirit in sunny days"
Above all, let there be silence, no pray
err, no ritual, no word said. For the
supremest expression of feeling is ST.
lence.
Here is my will, in these lines of
Thomas Moult:
When these tired eyes are closed in that long
which is the deepest and tho last OF all.
Shroud not my limbs With purple funeral pail.
Nor mock my rest with yainest prayers, nor
weep;
But take my ashes where the sunshine plays
| In dewy meadows splashed with gold and
white
And there. when stars peep from black pools
| at night.
Let the wind scatter them. And on the days
You wander by those meadow pools again,
Think OF me as then shall be, part
/ OF earth--naught else. And II you see the red
OF western skies. or feel tho clean. soft rain,
Or smell the flowers loved. then let your heart
Beat fast for me. and shall not be dead
| rVS A