Poetry
What to say at a funeral is often confounding. I’ve added some poems to the site that might be helpful.
After great pain a formal feeling comes
After great pain a formal feeling comes–
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions–was it He that bore?
And yesterday–or centuries before?
The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.
This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow–
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.
-Emily Dickinson
If I should die and leave you here awhile,
Be not like others, sore undone, who keep
Long vigils by the silent dust, and weep:
For my sake turn again to life, and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort weaker hearts than thine;
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine,
And I, perchance, may therein comfort you
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the
candle or the mirror that reflects it.
- Edith Wharton
Father Death Blues (Don’t Grow Old, Part V)
Hey Father Death, I’m flying home
Hey poor man, you’re all alone
Hey old daddy, I know where I’m going
Father Death, Don’t cry any more
Mama’s there, underneath the floor
Brother Death, please mind the store
Old Aunty Death Don’t hide your bones
Old Uncle Death I hear your groans
O Sister Death how sweet your moans
O Children Deaths go breathe your breaths
Sobbing breasts’ll ease your Deaths
Pain is gone, tears take the rest
Genius Death your art is done
Lover Death your body’s gone
Father Death I’m coming home
Guru Death your words are true
Teacher Death I do thank you
For inspiring me to sing this Blues
Buddha Death, I wake with you
Dharma Death, your mind is new
Sangha Death, we’ll work it through
Suffering is what was born
Ignorance made me forlorn
Tearful truths I cannot scorn
Father Breath once more farewell
Birth you gave was no thing ill
My heart is still, as time will tell.
- Allen Ginsberg
Happiness
In the afternoon I watched
the she-bear; she was looking
for the secret bin of sweetness -
honey, that the bees store
in the trees’ soft caves.
Black block of gloom, she climbed down
tree after tree and shuffled on
through the woods. And then
she found it! The honey-house deep
as heartwood, and dipped into it
among the swarming bees – honey and comb
she lipped and tongued and scooped out
in her black nails, until
maybe she grew full, or sleepy, or maybe
a little drunk, and sticky
down the rugs of her arms,
and began to hum and sway.
I saw her let go of the branches,
I saw her lift her honeyed muzzle
into the leaves, and her thick arms,
as though she would fly -
an enormous bee
all sweetness and wings -
down into the meadows, the perfections
of honeysuckle and roses and clover -
to float and sleep in the sheer nets
swaying from flower to flower
day after shining day.
- Mary Oliver
Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve;
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
- Chrisina Georgina Rosetti (1830-1894)
April Burial
On this chill day
Let earth be warm,
Receiving the child,
Undoing the harm.
Death was by day.
Then let no light
Enter this grave,
This natural night.
Beneath all days
Leave these together:
Earth and the quick girl,
Quiet forever.
- Mark Van Doren (1894-1973)
Delia
Sweet at the tender fragrance that survives,
When martyred flowers breathe out their little lives,
Sweet as a song that once consoled our pain,
But never will be sung to us again,
Is thy remembrance. Now the hour of rest
Hath come to thee. Sleep, darling: it is best.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Man does not live by care for himself, but by
love for others. it was not given the mother to know what was necessary
for the life of her children; it was not given to the right man
to know what was necessary for himself…. The orphans lived to
by any care they had for themselves, they lived through the love
that was in the heart of a stranger…and all people live, not
by reason of any care they have to themselves, but by the love
for them that is in other people…. God does not desire human
beings to live apart from one another, and therefore has not revealed
to them what is necessary for each to live alone. He wishes them
to live together united, and therefore has revealed to them that
they are necessary to each other’s happiness.
- Leo Tolstoy, from What Men Live By
All you who mourn the loss of loved ones, and,
at this hour, remember the sweet companionship and the cherished
hopes that have passed away with them, give ear to the word of
comfort spoken in the name of God. Only the body has died and has
been laid in the dust. The spirit lives in the shelter of God’s
love and mercy. Our loved ones continue, also, in the remembrance
of those to whom they were precious. Their deeds of loving kindness,
the true and beautiful words they spoke are treasured up as incentives
to conduct by which the living honor the dead. And when we ask
in our grief: Whence shall come our help and our comfort? then
in the strength of faith let us answer with the Psalmist: My help
cometh from God. He will not forsake us nor leave us in our grief.
Upon Him we cast or burden and He will grant us strength according
to the days He has apportioned to us. All life comes from Him;
all souls are in His keeping. Come then, and in the midst of sympathizing
fellow-worshipers, rise and hallow the name of God.
- from a funeral service in The Union Prayerbook
This is they hour O Soul, they free flight into
the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the
lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing,
pondering the themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
- Walt Whitman, from “A Clear Midnight”
I strove with non, for none was worth my strife.
Nature, I loved and, next to Nature, Art:
I warm’d both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
- Walter Savage Landor, “Finis”
God of pity and love, return to this earth.
Go not so far away, leaving us to evil.
Return, of Lord, return. Come with the day.
Come with the light, that mean may see once more
Across the earth’s uncomfortable floor
The kindly path, the old and living way.
Let us to die of evil in the night.
Let there be God again. Let there be light.
- from the Yom Kippur morning service in The Union Prayerbook
On Another’s Sorrow
Can I see another’s woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another’s grief,
And not seek for kind relief?
Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow’s share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow fill’d?
Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird’s grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear,
And not sit beside the nest,
Pouring pity in their breast;
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant’s tear;
And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
O, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
He doth give His joy to all;
He becomes an infant small;
He becomes a man of woe;
He doth feel the sorrow too.
Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by;
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.
O! He gives to us His joy
That our grief He may destroy;
Till our grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan.
- William Blake
Light
The night has a thousand eyes.
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun
The mind has a thousand eyes.
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
- Francis William Bourdillon
The Appointment in Samarra
Death speaks:
There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market
to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back,
white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the
market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned
I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a
threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away
from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there
death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the
servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast
as the horse could gallop he went.
Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing
in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening
gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not
a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise.
I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment
with him tonight in Samarra.
- W.Somerset Maugham, 1933
Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? “God is One.”
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
So that he may place another look in your eyes.
It is in the vision of the physical eyes
That no invisible or secret thing exists.
But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God
What thing could remain hidden under such a Light?
Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light
Don’t call all these lights “the Light of God”;
It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
…Oh God who gives the grace of vision!
The bird of vision is flying towards you with the wings of desire.
- Rumi
There are stars whose light reaches the earth
only after they themselves have disintegrated. And there are individuals
whose memory lights the world after they have passed from it. These
lights shine in the darkest night and illumine for us the path.
- Hannah Senesh
We living are a meager handful whose pathways
briefly intersect in a flash of time, before we join the larger
population of The Dead. Are we not but the rim, the outer edge,
transiently illumined, of the world’s people, the little passing
as against the great passed?
- “The Altar of the Dead”
The Dhammaapada
There is no suffering for the one who has finished the journey
and left sorrow behind, who has let go of all bonds to the world.
Such human beings take their leave with their thoughts in order.
They do not seek a new home. Like swans who have left their lake,
they abandon house and home.
- Buddhist aphorism, translated by Irving Babbitt
Musings of a Chinese Mystic
Before heaven and earth were, Tao was. It has existed without change
from all time. Spiritual beings drew their spirituality therefrom,
while the universe became what we can see it now. To Tao, the
zenith is not high nor the nadir low; no point in time is long
ago, nor by lapse of ages has it grown old….
The universe is very beautiful, yet it says nothing. The four seasons
abide by a fixed law, yet they are not heard. All creation is based
upon absolute principles, yet nothing speaks.
And the true Sage, taking his stand upon the beauty of the universe,
pierces the principles of created things. Hence the saying that
the perfect man does nothing, the true Sage performs nothing, beyond
gazing at the universe.
For man’s intellect, however keen, face to face with the countless
evolutions of things, their death and birth, their squareness and
roundness, –can never reach the root. There creation is, and their
it has ever been.
- Chuang Tzu, translated by H.A. Giles
Death Be Not Proud
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, 5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, 10
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
- John Donne
Imitations of Immortality
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
….
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
….
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
- William Wordsworth
Buddha in Glory
Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed, and growing sweet–
all this universe, to the furthest stars
all beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.
Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
your vast shell reaches into endless space,
and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,
a billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
On the Grasshopper and Cricket
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s—he takes the lead 5
In summer luxury,—he has never done
With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost 10
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.
- John Keats
The End
Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,
Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem
like
When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,
Or what he shall hope for once it is clear he’ll never go back.
When the time has passed to prune the rose or
caress the cat,
When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down
No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead.
When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky
Is no more than remembered light, and the stories
of cirrus
And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in
flight,
Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing
When the ship he is on slips into the darkness, there at the end.
- Mark Strand
The Fury Of Guitars And Sopranos
This singing
is a kind of dying,
a kind of birth,
a votive candle.
I have a dream-mother
who sings with her guitar,
nursing the bedroom
with a moonlight and beautiful olives.
A flute came too,
joining the five strings,
a God finger over the holes.
I knew a beautiful woman once
who sang with her fingertips
and her eyes were brown
like small birds.
At the cup of her breasts
I drew wine.
At the mound of her legs
I drew figs.
She sang for my thirst,
mysterious songs of God
that would have laid an army down.
It was as if a morning-glory
had bloomed in her throat
and all that blue
and small pollen
ate into my heart
violent and religious.
- Anne Sexton
Ascension
And if I go while you’re still here…
Know that I still live on,
Vibrating to a different measure
-behind a thin veil you cannot see through.
You will not see me,
so you must have faith.
I wait the time when we can soar together again,
-both aware of each other.
Until then, live your life to the fullest.
And when you need me,
just whisper my name in your heart,
….I will be there.
- Colleen Hitchcock
Be Still My Soul
Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.
Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.
Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.
Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.
Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, be leaving, to Thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.
- Katherina von Schlege
Do Not Weep For Me
Do not weep for me, for I have lived…
I have joined my hand with my fellow’s hands,
to leave the planet better than I found it.
Do not week for me, for I have loved and been
loved my
my family, by those I love who loved me back.
For I never knew a stranger, only friends.
Do not weep for me.
When you feel the ocean spray upon your face,
I am there.
Whey your heart beats faster at the dolphin’s leaping grace,
I am there.
When your reach out to touch another’s heart,
as now I touch God’s face,
I am there.
Do not weep for me. I am not gone.
- Author Unknown
God Saw You Getting Tired
God saw you getting tired
And a cure was not to be
So He put His arms around you
And whispered ‘Come with Me.’
With tearful eyes
We watched you suffer
And saw you fade away
Although we loved you dearly
We could not make you stay.
A golden heart stopped beating
Hard working hands at rest
God broke our hearts to prove
He only takes the best.
It’s lonesome here without you
We miss you more each day
Life doesn’t seem the same
Since you’ve gone away.
When days are sad and lonely
And everything goes wrong
We seem to hear you whisper
‘Cheer up and carry on.’
Each time we see your picture
You seem to smile and say
‘Don’t cry, I’m in God’s keeping
We’ll meet again someday.’
- Author Unknown
I Cannot Forget You
No matter how hard I try to forget you, you always come back
to my thoughts.
When you hear me singing I am really crying for you.
- Translated from the Maka
If You Come Softly
If you come as softly
As the wind within the trees
You may hear what I hear
See what sorrow sees.
If you come as lightly
As threading dew
I will take you gladly
Nor ask more of you.
You may sit beside me
Silent as a breath
Only those who stay dead
Shall remember death.
And if you come I will be silent
Nor speak harsh words to you.
I will not ask you why now.
Or how, or what you do.
We shall sit here, softly
Beneath two different years
And the rich between us
Shall drink our tears.
- Audre Lorde
Immortality
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 glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!
- Mary E. Frye
Miss Me — But Let Me Go
When I come to the end of the road
And the sun has set for me
I want no rites in a gloom-filled room.
Why cry for a soul set free?
Miss me a little–but not too long
And not with your head bowed low.
Remember the love that we once shared,
Miss me–but let me go.
For this is a journey that we all must take
And each must go alone.
It’s all a part of the master’s plan,
A step on the road to home.
When you are lonely and sick of heart
Go to the friends we know
And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds.
Miss me–but let me go.
- Edgar Albert Guest
They Are Not Long
They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for awhile, then closes
Within a dream.”
- Ernest Dowson
Turn Again To Life
If I should die and leave you here awhile,
Be not like others, sore undone, who keep
Long vigils by the silent dust and weep.
For my sake – turn to life and smile,
nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort other hearts than thine.
Complete those dear unfinished tasks of mine
And I , perchance, may therein comfort you.
- Mary Lee Hall
When I am gone, release me, let me go. . .
I have so many things to see and do.
You mustn’t tie yourself to me with tears
Be happy that we had so many years.
I gave you my love, You can only guess
How much you gave to me in happiness.
I thank you for the love you each have shown
But now it’s time I traveled on alone.
So grieve a while for me if grieve you must
Then let your grief be comforted by trust
It’s only for a while that we must part
So bless the memories within your heart.
I won’t be far away, for life goes on.
So, if you need me, call and I will come.
Though you can’t see me or touch me.
I’ll be near . . .
and if you listen with your heart,
you’ll hear
All of my love around you soft and clear.
And then, when you must come this way alone
I’ll greet you with a smile and say
“Welcome Home”.
- Author Unknown
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
Dirge without Music
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving
hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, — but the best is lost.
The answers quick & keen, the honest look,
the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in
the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
