General
Condolence
Poems
“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” – Thomas Campbell
Pet
Death
Don’t carry me off in a brass-handled coffin
With a wreath on my chest I won’t be ‘at rest’
There’s nothing much worse than a ride in a hearse
To a hole in the ground with just strangers around
No! bury me deep in the compost heap
Or pop me right under a nice floribunda
Its really much wiser to become fertiliser
Then I can grow roses as I decomposes.
A stone I died and rose again a plant;
A plant I died and rose an animal;
I died an animal and was born a man.
Why should I fear? What have I lost by death?
Death is at once
The end of the body’s
Old journey
And the beginning of the soul’s
New journey.
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!
A limb has fallen from the family tree.
I keep hearing a voice that says, “Grieve not for me”.
Remember the best times, the laughter, the song.
The good life I lived while I was strong.
Continue my heritage, I’m counting on you.
Keep smiling and surely the sun will shine through.
My mind is at ease, my soul is at rest.
Remembering all, how I truly was blessed.
Continue traditions, no matter how small.
Go on with your life, don’t worry about falls
I miss you all dearly, so keep up your chin.
Until the day comes we’re together again.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
“When I die
Give what’s left of me away
To children
And old men that wait to die.
And if you need to cry,
Cry for your brother
Walking the street beside you
And when you need me,
Put your arms
Around anyone
And give to them
What you need to give to me.
I want to leave you something,
Something better
Than words
Or sounds.
Look for me
In the people I’ve known
Or loved,
And if you cannot give me away,
At least let me live in your eyes
And not on your mind.
You can love me most
By letting
Hands touch hands
By letting
Bodies touch bodies
And by letting go
Of children
That need to be free.
Love doesn’t die,
People do.
So, when all that’s left of me
Is love,
Give me away”
God looked around his garden
And He found an empty place.
He then looked down upon this earth,
And saw your tired face.
He put his arms around you
And lifted you to rest.
God’s garden must be beautiful
He always takes the best.
He knew that you were suffering
He knew you were in pain
He knew that you would never
Get well on earth again.
He saw that the road was getting rough.
And the hills are hard to climb,
So He closed your weary eyelids
And whispered “Peace be thine”.
It broke our hearts to lose you
But you didn’t go alone
For part of us went with you
That day that God called you home
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
You think I’ve gone, that I am dead, and life has lost its will,
But look around, I am right there, living with you still
I watch your tears, I feel your pain – I see the things you do
I weep as well, each time you cry, my soul, it lives with you
It gives such joy to hear you laugh, and do the things you do
And when you smile o’er by gone days, I smile right with you too
For we’re still one, just you and me, one mind, one soul, one being
Walking forward into life, though only you are seen
And in the stillness of the night, when the pain it really starts
Stretch out a little with your mind and draw me to your heart
For I am always right in there, always by your side
For you have been, all my life’s days, my joy, my love my pride.
I wrote your name in the sky,
but the wind blew it away.
I wrote your name in the sand,
but the waves washed it away.
I wrote your name in my heart,
and forever will it stay.
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.
My secret and sacred bird now flies
To meet the Spirit’s vacancy.
All chaos of life today dissolved;
In me a surge of ecstasy.
Gold flames within my longing heart
Invoke the cosmos’ Parent-Sun.
A tapestry of Truth unseen
Bursts forth within; the Play is begun.
I sit on the bench by a cherry tree
I wait for death
I have sat here all my life
This spring morning
I am so still the birds hop up to me or light on my arm
And the breeze blows through me
There’s no hidden self, no secret self
Inside me lies the planet that was my life,
The playgrounds and battlegrounds,
The love bed and the deathbed
It is I who painted the mountains with glory
And the sky with flame
It is I who wears the pink blossoms in my hair
For a moment, I am flush with forgiveness
Hush, I am trying to forget.
I will stand in a moment and leave this place
To its absolute loneliness and charm.
I will hobble through the gate and down the road built by strangers
In the perfect symmetry of a life willingly left behind.
Life is a journey.
Death is the continuation of the journey.
Heaven is a temporary rest.
For the commencement and fulfillment
Of a new life, a new hope
And a new promise
Death is not the end.
Death can never be the end.
Death is the road.
Life is the traveler.
The soul is the guide.
……………
I know I will love death.
Why?
Because death too
Is God’s creation
And because death reminds me
Of the existence of her sister:
Infinity’s Life immortal.
……………
The body has death, but not the soul.
The body sleeps, the soul flies.
The soul-stirring words on death and the soul in this chapter of the Gita, let us recollect.
Even as man discards old clothes for the new ones, so the dweller in the body, the soul,
leaving aside the worn-out bodies, enters into new bodies.
The soul migrates from body to body.
Weapons cannot cleave it, nor fire consume it, nor water drench it, nor wind dry it.
This is the soul and this is what is meant by the existence of the soul.
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
May the road rise up to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home
And may the hand of a friend always be near.
May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.
For a second you were flying
Like you always wanted to
Now you’ll fly forever
In skies of azure blue
We’ll see your smile in every ray
Of sunshine after rain
And hear the echo of your laughter
Over all the pain
The world’s a little quieter now
The colours have lost their hue
The birds are singing softly
And our hearts are missing you
Each time we see a little cloud
Or a rainbow soaring high
We’ll think of you and gently
Wipe a tear from our eye
100+
Funeral
Poems
We have collected and categorised a selection of 100+ poems to help anyone searching for a fitting funeral reading.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, all come from earth, and to earth all return.
Ashes to ashes,
dust to dust,
all come from earth,
and to earth all return.