101 Poems, Number 56

Favorite Poems Throughout My Life

56: “Fear No More,” from Cymbeline (4.2), by William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

I’d read this song some time ago—

A Shakespeare play called Cymbeline.

But I’d forgotten it (so slow!)

Till Richard Russo, in a scene,

Employed it in a novel, and

He used it in a memoir, too.*

A loved one’s ashes in the sand

Just scattered there—no, nothing new.

The song tells how we need not fear

The problems of our lives and world—

Not when the end is more than near—

And all away our time has whirled.

This is a very simple song—

It shows our unity, at last.

To learn? Why does it take so long?

We’re in the same dramatic cast.

*That Old Cape Magic (2009) and Elsewhere: A Memoir (2012). Russo is one of my great favorites, but for some reason, he referred—in both books—to “Fear No More” as a sonnet, which (if you follow the link) you will see that it clearly is not.

Link to poem.  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50428/song-fear-no-more-the-heat-o-the-sun-