British Soldier Slain by IRA Left Poignant Verse

A young soldier killed by an IRA land mine left behind a sealed envelope with a simple poem that urged his family not to cry at his grave.

Stephen Cummins, 24, was one of two British soldiers killed when their convoy struck a mine near the Northern Ireland city of Londonderry on Wednesday.

His parents, Sheila and Geoff Cummins, had an envelope that their son told them not to open unless something happened to him. On Thursday, they opened the envelope and found solace from the person they mourned.

“Stephen has never done anything like this before. We assume he copied the poem from somewhere, but it has made us realize what a wonderful son we had,” said Geoff Cummins.

But Debbie Turley, 26, who was engaged to marry Cummins, said he was always writing poems.

Cummins signed the poem: “Anonymous” and added: “Thank you, forever, always and a day. Stephen Jeffrey Cummins.”

The outlawed Irish Republican Army, which is seeking to drive the British out of Northern Ireland, claimed in a statement to news agencies that the poem was written by Marilyn Rhinehart, of Arizona, and was mailed to a republican prisoner.

Geoff Cummins said his son was a committed, responsible professional soldier, “but he would not want to be called a hero. There is nothing heroic about dying like that.”

Poem Stephen Cummins Left

To all my loved ones,

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 diamond glints on snow,

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain,

When you awaken in the morning’s hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight,

I am the soft stars that shine at night,

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there. I did not die.

(The IRA, which claimed that the poem was written by an American woman, said the last line should read: “While Ireland Lives, I will not die.”)