Funeral Poems

FUNERAL POEMS No.8

DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP

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

Mary Elizabeth Frye ( 1905-2004)

FUNERAL POEMS No.9

CROSSING THE BAR

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson ( 1809-1892)

FUNERAL POEMS No.10

A PSALM OF LIFE

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,     

Life is but an empty dream!-

For the soul is dead that slumbers,     

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!     

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,     

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,     

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow     

Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,     

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating     

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,     

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!    

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!     

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act,-act in the living Present!    

Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us     

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us     

Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,     

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,     

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,     

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,     

Learn to labor and to wait

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

FUNERAL POEMS No.11

SONNET 60

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand.

Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564-1616)

FUNERAL POEMS No.12

THE SHIP

What is dying

I am standing on the seashore, a ship sails in the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.

She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her till at last she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says: "She is gone."

Gone!

Where

Gone from my sight that is all.

She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.

The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says,

"She is gone"

there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout:

"There she comes!"

and that is dying.

Bishop Brent ( 1862-1926)

FUNERAL POEMS No.13

DEATH IS NOTHING AT ALL

Death is nothing at all.

It does not count.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

Nothing has happened.

Everything remains exactly as it was.

I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name.

Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.

Put no difference into your tone.

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.

Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same as it ever was.

There is absolute and unbroken continuity.

What is this death but a negligible accident

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight

I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner.

All is well.

Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.

One brief moment and all will be as it was before.

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)

FUNERAL POEMS No.14

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.

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)

FUNERAL POEMS No.15

SONG

When I am dead, my dearest

Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,

I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on, as if in pain:

And dreaming through the twilight   

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,   

And haply may forget.

Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894)

FUNERAL POEMS No.16

JOY AND SORROW

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Khalil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

FUNERAL POEMS No.17

DEATH

Then Almitra spoke, saying, "We would ask now of Death."

And he said:

You would know the secret of death.

But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life

The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;

And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king

Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun

And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Khalil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

FUNERAL POEMS No.18

TO GOD THE FATHER

To the little, pitiful God I make my prayer,

The God with the long grey beard

And flowing robe fastened with a hempen girdle

Who sits nodding and muttering on the all-too-big throne of Heaven.

What a long, long time, dear God, since you set the stars in their places,

Girded the earth with the sea, and invented the day and night.

And longer the time since you looked through the blue window of Heaven

To see your children at play in a garden...

Now we are all stronger than you and wiser and more arrogant,

In swift procession we pass you by.

"Who is that marionette nodding and muttering

On the all-too-big throne of Heaven

Come down from your place, Grey Beard,

We have had enough of your play-acting!"

It is centuries since I believed in you,

But to-day my need of you has come back.

I want no rose-coloured future,

No books of learning, no protestations and denials--I am sick of this ugly scramble,

I am tired of being pulled about--O God, I want to sit on your knees

On the all-too-big throne of Heaven,

And fall asleep with my hands tangled in your grey beard.

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)

FUNERAL POEMS No.19

THERE IS A SOLEMN WIND TONIGHT

There is a solemn wind to-night

That sings of solemn rain;

The trees that have been quiet so long

Flutter and start again.

The slender trees, the heavy trees,

The fruit trees laden and proud,

Lift up their branches to the wind

That cries to them so loud.

The little bushes and the plants

Bow to the solemn sound,

And every tiniest blade of grass

Shakes on the quiet ground.

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)

FUNERAL POEMS No.20

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood (1807)

I

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,

The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;-

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II

The Rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the Rose,

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

III

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,

And while the young lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound,

To me alone there came a thought of grief:

A timely utterance gave that thought relief,

And I again am strong:

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;

I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,

The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,

And all the earth is gay;

Land and sea

Give themselves up to jollity,

And with the heart of May

Doth every Beast keep holiday;-

Thou Child of Joy,

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy

Shepherd-boy!

IV

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call

Ye to each other make; I see

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;

My heart is at your festival,

My head hath its coronal,

The fulness of your bliss, I feel- I feel it all.

Oh evil day! if I were sullen

While the Earth herself is adorning,

This sweet May-morning,

And the Children are culling

On every side,

In a thousand valleys far and wide,

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,

And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:-

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

- But there's a Tree, of many, one,

A single Field which I have looked upon,

Both of them speak of something that is gone:

The Pansy at my feet

Doth the same tale repeat:

Whither is fled the visionary gleam

Where is it now, the glory and the dream

V

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:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy,

But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

VI

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,

And, even with something of a Mother's mind,

And no unworthy aim,

The homely Nurse doth all she can

To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,

Forget the glories he hath known,

And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,

A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!

See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,

With light upon him from his father's eyes!

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,

Some fragment from his dream of human life,

Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;

A wedding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral;

And this hath now his heart,

And unto this he frames his song:

Then will he fit his tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;

But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride

The little Actor cons another part;

Filling from time to time his "humorous stage"

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,

That Life brings with her in her equipage;

As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.

VIII

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie

Thy Soul's immensity;

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep

Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, -

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!

On whom those truths do rest,

Which we are toiling all our lives to find,

In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;

Thou, over whom thy Immortality

Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,

A Presence which is not to be put by;

To whom the grave

Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight

Of day or the warm light,

A place of thought where we in waiting lie;

Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke

The years to bring the inevitable yoke,

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife

Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,

And custom lie upon thee with a weight,

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

IX

O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,

That nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest;

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: -

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realised,

High instincts before which our mortal Nature

Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:

But for those first affections,

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,

Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make

Our noisy years seem moments in the being

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,

To perish never;

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,

Nor Man nor Boy,

Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy!

Hence in a season of calm weather

Though inland far we be,

Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea

Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the Children sport upon the shore,

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

X

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young Lambs bound

As to the tabor's sound!

We in thought will join your throng,

Ye that pipe and ye that play,

Ye that through your hearts today

Feel the gladness of the May!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

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.

XI

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,

Forebode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;

I only have relinquished one delight

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day

Is lovely yet;

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;

Another race hath been, and other palms are won.

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.