Funeral poems and readings

Remember

Christina Rossetti. Goblin Market and Other Poems, 1862.

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.

Crossing the Bar

Alfred Tennyson. Demeter and Other Poems, 1889.

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 tho' 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 crost the bar.

Song (When I am dead, my dearest)

Christina Rossetti. Goblin Market and Other Poems, 1862.

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.

Requiem

Robert Louis Stevenson. Underwoods, 1887.

Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor; home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.

Because I could not stop for Death

Emily Dickinson. Poems, 1890, as The Chariot.

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 labor, 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 't is centuries; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity.

Peace, my heart

Rabindranath Tagore. The Gardener, 1913, poem 61.

Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet. Let it not be a death but completeness. Let love melt into memory and pain into songs. Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest. Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the night. Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence. I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost. New Hampshire, 1923.

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

Psalm 121

Often read at a Jewish funeral or at the graveside.

A Song of Ascents. I will lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: From whence shall my help come? My help cometh from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, He that keepeth Israel Doth neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is thy keeper; The LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, Nor the moon by night. The LORD shall keep thee from all evil; He shall keep thy soul. The LORD shall guard thy going out and thy coming in, From this time forth and for ever.

Translation: Jewish Publication Society, 1917.

Proverbs 31:10, 28-31

A woman of valour, often read at the funeral of a wife or mother.

A woman of valour who can find? For her price is far above rubies. Her children rise up, and call her blessed; Her husband also, and he praiseth her: 'Many daughters have done valiantly, But thou excellest them all.' Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vain; But a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; And let her works praise her in the gates.

Translation: Jewish Publication Society, 1917.

Quran 2:155-157

Verse 156 is what many Muslims say on hearing of a death.

And surely We shall try you with something of fear and hunger, and loss of wealth and lives and crops; but give glad tidings to the steadfast, Who say, when a misfortune striketh them: Lo! we are Allah's and lo! unto Him we are returning. Such are they on whom are blessings from their Lord, and mercy. Such are the rightly guided.

Translation: Marmaduke Pickthall, 1930.

The Buddha's last words

From the account of the Buddha's death, a reminder that everything changes.

Then the Blessed One addressed the brethren, and said: "Behold now, brethren, I exhort you, saying, 'Decay is inherent in all component things! Work out your salvation with diligence!'"

Translation: T. W. Rhys Davids, 1881.

Bhagavad Gita, chapter 2

On the soul that is never born and never dies.

Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never; Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams! Birthless and deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for ever; Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!

Translation: Edwin Arnold, 1885.

Bhagavad Gita, chapter 2

The body as clothing the spirit puts aside.

Nay, but as when one layeth His worn-out robes away, And taking new ones, sayeth, "These will I wear to-day!" So putteth by the spirit Lightly its garb of flesh, And passeth to inherit A residence afresh.

Translation: Edwin Arnold, 1885.