A collection of poems useful when planning a funeral or memorial. My sincere sympathy for your loss. (If you are specifically looking for poems on the loss of a child, click here.)
Afterglow
by Helen Lowrie Marshall
I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one.
I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when life is done.
I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down the ways,
Of happy times and laughing times and bright and sunny days.
I’d like the tears of those who grieve, to dry before the sun;
Of happy memories that I leave when life is done.
To Those Whom I Love & Those Who Love Me
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 too many tears,
But be thankful we had so many good years.
I gave you my love, and you can only guess
How much you’ve given me in happiness.
I thank you for the love that you have shown,
But now it is time I traveled on alone.
So grieve for me a while, if grieve you must,
Then let your grief be comforted by trust.
It is only for a while that we must part,
So treasure the memories within your heart.
I won’t be far away for life goes on.
And if you need me, call and I will come.
Though you can’t see or touch me, I will be near.
And if you listen with your heart, you’ll hear,
All my love around you soft and clear.
And then, when you come this way alone,
I’ll greet you with a smile and a ‘Welcome Home’.
Author Unknown
You’ve Just Walked On Ahead of Me
by Joyce Grenfell
And I’ve got to understand
You must release the ones you love
And let go of their hand.
I try and cope the best I can
But I’m missing you so much
If I could only see you
And once more feel your touch.
Yes, you’ve just walked on ahead of me
Don’t worry I’ll be fine
But now and then I swear I feel
Your hand slip into mine.
Remember Me
by Margaret Mead
To the living, I am gone,
To the sorrowful, I will never return,
To the angry, I was cheated,
But to the happy, I am at peace,
And to the faithful, I have never left.
I cannot speak, but I can listen.
I cannot be seen, but I can be heard.
So as you stand upon a shore gazing at a beautiful sea,
As you look upon a flower and admire its simplicity,
Remember me.
Remember me in your heart:
Your thoughts, and your memories,
Of the times we loved,
The times we cried,
The times we fought,
The times we laughed.
For if you always think of me, I will never have gone.
Let Me Go
by Christina Rossetti
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 for long
And not with your head bowed low
Remember the love that once we shared
Miss me, but let me go.
For this is a journey we all must take
And each must go alone.
It’s all part of the master plan
A step on the road to home.
When you are lonely and sick at heart
Go to the friends we know.
Laugh at all the things we used to do
Miss me, but let me go.
Hopi Prayer
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am the thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint in the snow.
I am the sunlight on the ripened grain.
I am the autumn’s gentle rain.
When you awaken in the morning 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.
Buddhist Prayer
May I know myself forgiven for all the harm I may have thought and done, May I accomplish this profound practice of phowa, and die a good and peaceful death, And through the triumph of my death, may I be able to benefit all other beings, living or dead.
(*note: “phowa” means the transference of consciousness.)
Buddhist Prayer
The Buddha said,
Life is a journey.
Death is a return to earth.
The universe is like an inn.
The passing years are like dust.
Regard this phantom world
As a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp – a phantom – and a dream.
(Vairacchedika 32)
SHE IS GONE (HE IS GONE)
by David Harkins
You can shed tears that she is gone
Or you can smile because she has lived
You can close your eyes and pray that she will come back
Or you can open your eyes and see all that she has left
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her
Or you can be full of the love that you shared
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday
You can remember her and only that she is gone
Or you can cherish her memory and let it live on
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
Or you can do what she would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
The Sailing Ship
by Luther F. Beecher (1813–1903)
What is dying?
I am standing on the seashore.
A ship sails to the morning breeze
and starts for the ocean.
She is an object
and I stand watching her
Till at last she fades from 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.
Tis a Fearful Thing
by Yehuda HaLevi (1075 – 1141)
‘Tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to be –
to be,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing,
a holy thing
to love.
For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.
Live Your Best Life
by Dawna Markova
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
God of the Open Air
Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933)
These are the things I prize
And hold of dearest worth:
Light of the sapphire skies,
Peace of the silent hills,
Shelter of forests, comfort of the grass,
Music of birds, murmur of little rills,
Shadow of clouds that swiftly pass,
And, after showers,
The smell of flowers
And of the good brown earth,
And best of all, along the way, friendship and mirth.
So let me keep
These treasures of the humble heart
In true possession, owning them by love;
And when at last I can no longer move
Among them freely, but must part
From the green fields and from the waters clear,
Let me not creep
Into some darkened room and hide
From all that makes the world so bright and dear;
But throw the windows wide
To welcome in the light;
And while I clasp a well-beloved hand,
Let me once more have sight
Of the deep sky and the far-smiling land,
Then gently fall on sleep,
And breathe my body back to Nature’s care,
My spirit out to thee, God of the open air.
Feel no guilt in laughter, he’d know how much you care
Unknown Author
Feel no guilt in laughter, he’d know how much you care.
Feel no sorrow in a smile that he is not here to share.
You cannot grieve forever; he would not want you to.
He’d hope that you could carry on the way you always do.
So, talk about the good times and the way you showed you cared,
The days you spent together, all the happiness you shared.
Let memories surround you, a word someone may say
Will suddenly recapture a time, an hour, a day,
That brings him back as clearly as though he were still here,
And fills you with the feeling that he is always near.
For if you keep those moments, you will never be apart
And he will live forever locked safely within your heart.
Sanctum
by Beulah B. Malkin
I built a tiny garden
In a corner of my heart
I kept it just for lovely things
And bade all else depart
And ever was there music
And flowers blossomed fair;
And never was it perfect
Until you entered there.
Last Touch
by Carol Lynn Pearson
When she touched him for the first time
His skin was warm
And his hair was soft
And his fingers sweet
And the sun through the tall pinnes
Rose in invocation
On the blanket of blossoms
And he was so beautiful
And she had never seen such a smile.
When she touched him for the last time
His skin was cold.
And his hair was thin
And his fingers shook
And the moon through the hospital window
Fell in benediction
On the little table
Heavy with flowers and fruit
And her tear joined his tear
At the little line
Where his smile began.
Farewell
Anne Bronte (1820 – 1847)
Farewell to Thee! But not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of Thee;
Within my heart they still shall dwell
And they shall cheer and comfort me.
Life seems more sweet that Thou didst live
And men more true that Thou wert one;
Nothing is lost that Thou didst give,
Nothing destroyed that Thou hast done.
Oneness
by Thich Nhat Hanh
The moment I die,
I will try to come back to you
as quickly as possible.
I promise it will not take long.
Isn’t it true
I am already with you
in every moment?
I come back to you
in every moment.
Just look,
feel my presence.
If you want to cry,
please cry.
And know
that I will cry with you.
The tears you shed
will heal us both.
Your tears are mine.
The earth I tread this morning
transcends history.
Spring and Winter are both present in the moment.
The young leaf and the dead leaf are really one.
My feet touch deathlessness,
and my feet are yours.
Walk with me now.
Let us enter the dimension of oneness
and see the cherry tree blossom in Winter.
Why should we talk about death?
I don’t need to die
to be back with you.
I Am Learning How To Live
by Jamey Wysocki
I am learning how to live
In a new way
Since that day
You were taken away.
I am learning how to live
With the things left unsaid
Knowing I got to say them
With every tear that I shed.
I am learning how to live
By embracing the pain
Knowing that you live on
Through the memories that remain.
I am learning how to live
Knowing I will never again see your face
And I have peace knowing
You’re in a better place.
I am learning how to live
Knowing you’re in God’s care
It gives me the strength to move on
And makes the pain much easier to bear.
Of Death
Kahlil Gibran (1883 – 1931), From The Prophet
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 it 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.
Last Words
by Sylvia Plath
I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it.
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already — the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers and mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.
I should sugar and preserve my days like fruit!
My mirror is clouding over–
A few more breaths, and it will reflect nothing at all.
The flowers and the faces whiten to a sheet.
I do not trust the spirit. It escapes like steam
In dreams, through mouth-hole or eye-hole. I can’t stop it.
One day it wont come back. Things aren’t like that.
They stay, their little particular lusters
Warmed by much handling. They almost purr.
When the soles of my feet grow cold,
The blue eye of my tortoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.
They will roll me up in bandages, they will store my heart
Under my feet in a neat parcel.
I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,
And the shine of these small things sweeter than the face of Ishtar.
Awaiting
by GW Marshall
Oh, little man, your stay was short
You never knew this world of distress,
But you brought loving comfort,
To where God chose to bless.
In our quiet times together alone,
I shall always cherish until that day
When death shall find me and atone,
And we both are home to stay.
I shall await and always look forward,
For looking back brings only tears
And you are now safe with the Lord,
Awaiting when I finish my years.
God’s Lent Child
by Author Unknown
I’ll lend you for a little while,
a child of mine, God said
For you to love the while he lives
and mourn for when he’s dead.
It may be six or seven years,
or forty-two or three
But will you, till I call him back,
take care of him for me?
He’ll bring his charms to gladden you
and should his stay be brief
You’ll always have his memories
as a solace in your grief.
I cannot promise he will stay,
since all from earth return,
But there are lessons taught below
I want this child to learn.
I’ve looked this whole world over
in my search for teachers true
And from the folk that crowd Life’s lane
I have chosen you.
Now will you give him all your love
and not think the labour vain,
Nor hate me when I come to take
this lent child back again?
I fancy that I heard them say
“Dear God, thy will be done.
For all the joys this child will bring
the risk of grief we’ll run.
We will shelter him with tenderness,
we’ll love him while we may
And for all the happiness we’ve ever known,
we’ll ever grateful stay.
But should the angels call him
much sooner than we’d planned
We will brave the bitter grief that comes
and try to understand.”
If I should go tomorrow
Anonymous
If I should go tomorrow
It would never be goodbye,
For I have left my heart with you,
So don’t you ever cry.
The love that’s deep within me,
Shall reach you from the stars,
You’ll feel it from the heavens,
And it will heal the scars.
Idyll
Siegfried Sassoon
In the grey summer garden I shall find you
With day-break and the morning hills behind you.
There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings;
And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings.
Not from the past you’ll come, but from that deep
Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep:
And I shall know the sense of life re-born
From dreams into the mystery of morn
Where gloom and brightness meet. And standing there
Till that calm song is done, at last we’ll share
The league-spread, quiring symphonies that are
Joy in the world, and peace, and dawn’s one star.
If I be the First of us to Die
Nicholas Evans, The Smoke Jumper
If I be the first of us to die,
Let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving.
There is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is part of life,
The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey,
The moments shared, the mysteries explored,
The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing,
Each giving and each taking,
These are not flowers that fade,
Nor trees that fall and crumble,
Nor are the stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand
And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.
What we were, we are.
What we had, we have.
A conjoined past imperishably present.
So when you walk the wood where once we walked together
And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,
And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,
Be still.
Close your eyes.
Breathe.
Listen for my footfall in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you.
Farewell My Friends
Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941)
Farewell My Friends
It was beautiful
As long as it lasted
The journey of my life.
I have no regrets
Whatsoever said
The pain I’ll leave behind.
Those dear hearts
Who love and care…
And the strings pulling
At the heart and soul…
The strong arms
That held me up
When my own strength
Let me down.
Each morsel that I was
Fed with was full of love divine.
At every turning of my life
I came across
Good friends,
Friends who stood by me
Even when the time raced me by.
Farewell, farewell
My friends
I smile and
Bid you goodbye.
No, shed no tears
For I need them not
All I need is your smile.
If you feel sad
Do think of me
For that’s what I’ll like.
When you live in the hearts
Of those you love
Remember then
You never die.
May Time Soften Your Pain
Anonymous
In times of darkness, love sees…
In times of silence, love hears…
In times of doubt, love hopes…
In times of sorrow, love heals…
And in all times, love remembers.
May time soften the pain
Until all that remains
Is the warmth of the memories
And the love.
Perfection Wasted
by John Updike
And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market-
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That’s it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren’t the same.
Cremation
by Robinson Jeffers
It nearly cancels my fear of death, my dearest said,
When I think of cremation. To rot in the earth
Is a loathsome end, but to roar up in flames-besides, I am used to it.
I have flamed with love or fury so often in my life,
No wonder my body is tired, no wonder it is dying.
We had great joy of my body. Scatter the ashes.
Need of the Breath
by Hafiz, Excerpt from The Gift
My heart
Is an unset jewel
upon the tender night
yearning for its dear old friend
The Moon.
When the Nameless One debuts again
Ten thousand faces of my being unfurl wings
And reveal such a radiance inside
I enter a realm divine-
I too being, to so sweetly cast light,
Like a lamp,
Through the streets of this
World
My heart is an unset jewel
Upon existence
Waiting for the Friend’s touch.
Tonight
My heart is an unset ruby
Offered bowed and weeping to the Sky.
I am dying in these cold hours
For the resplendent glance of God.
I am dying
Because of a diving remembrance
Of who I really am.
Gibran On Death
by Kahlil Gibran
…For what is it to die but to stand naked
in the wind and to melt into the sun…
I AM NOT I
by Juan Ramon Jimenez, Translated by Robert Bly
I am not I.
I am this one
Walking beside me whom I do not see,
Whom at times I manage to visit,
And whom at other times I forget;
Who remains calm and silent while I talk,
And forgives, gently, when I hate,
Who walks where I am not,
Who will remain standing when I die.
Because I could not stop for Death
by Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.
Remember Me
Christine Currah
Remember me when I am gone
But not with sorrow, pain and grief
Think of me as a turning leaf
To be born again in spring
And live forever in your heart.
No Man Is An Island
John Donne (1572-1631)
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Departed Comrade
Lucretius (99 – 55 BC)
Departed comrade! Thou, redeemed from pain
Shall sleep the sleep that kings desire in vain:
Not thine the sense of loss
But lo, for us the void
That never shall be filled again.
Not thine but ours the grief.
All pain is fled from thee.
And we are weeping in thy stead;
Tears for the mourners who are left behind
Peace everlasting for the quiet dead.
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