h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm trying to track down a poem I read when I was at school. The first line, if I remember correctly, was:

Remember Death, for I am he

The last line was:

Remember me.

I *think* the poem was called Memento Mori, but an online search has only brought up a poem of that title by Rees Prichard. It's definitely not that one. At the time the poetry we were studying was 20th century poetry. We were working from two books and I can't remember the title of either of them. I *think* one of them was called 20th Century Modern Verse, but I'm not sure.

Sounds like it was carved on a tombstone. Maybe search for memorials rather than poems?

Apart from googling (which produces nothing), I don't think I can help. Maybe it is a WW1 poem?

On the same subject, I have only just discovered Shakespeare's 73rd Sonnet, which I found very moving.

http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/73detail.html

When I google it, I get this conversation. And a similar one in 2005 where you were trying to find the same poem.

The closest I can come is Act 5 of "As you like it:"

TOUCHSTONE: Then learn this of me: to have, is to have; for it
is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out
of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty
the other; for all your writers do consent that ipse
is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he.

"Remember death, the destroyer of pleasures" comes up frequently in Islamic literature.

Interestingly enough, the metaphor of full and empty glasses is often found in the Rubayyat of Omar Khayyam. To have an empty glass is to be dead. So, Touchstone's rhetoric can be used as an allusion to enjoying the pleasures of life [draining the glass of drink] also brings you closer to death.

Here's someone looking for a very similar verse:

http://www.vastpublicindifference.com/2010/02/remember-me-as-you-pass-by.html

You might want to check a few of the links people have posted in comments (I haven't yet):

Gnomon, I know I've been looking for the poem for a while, off and on, but I didn't realise I'd been looking for that long!

Icy, thanks for the links, but I'm pretty sure it was a poem, not an inscription. It certainly wasn't the verse quoted in the vastpublicindifference link. Like I said, it's likely to be something I read at school more than 30 years ago. I can't remember the title of the book it was in or the author of the poem, which doesn't help much.

It sounds like it could be from something similar to 'Spoon River Anthology'
http://spoonriveranthology.net/spoon/river/

F S

I'm surprised that you say that "death is the destroyer of pleasures" - what happened to the 72 virgins thing?

FS, thanks for the link. Those are epitaphs, though. Like I said, I remember a poem, not an epitaph.

A memento mori is basically a poem that's inscribed on a tomb to remind onlookers of their mortality. Typically they depict a skull above the lines "As I am, so shall ye be", etc.

But that's not to say yours isn't a poem with that title - I hope you find it

"what happened to the 72 virgins thing?" [TC]

They were recalled under warranty.

Branson?

Wasn't Branson the model for Zaphod Beeblebrox?

This was the earlier conversation on this topic:

F19585?thread=850288

It's probably a bit of a long shot, but have you tried the forum at AbeBooks BookSleuth?
I realise it's usually to find a book, but there's a lot of knowledgable people there that might recognise it, or the book it comes from.

Worth a try?


http://forums.abebooks.co.uk/discussions/AbeBookscouk_BookSleuth/abesleuthuk?redirCnt=1&mobile=y

Thanks for the AbeBooks link. I've posted a question there. I'll also post on GoodReads, just in case somebody there recognises it.