If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain:
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
Funerals
I have collected a selection of poems and readings you may like to use during a ceremony, I hope you will find something suitable. I intend to add more regularly.
From Adonais
She is made one with Nature: there is heard
Her voice in all her music, from the moan
Of thunder, to the song of night’s sweet bird;
She is a presence to be felt and known
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,
Spreading itself where’er that Power may move
Which has withdrawn her being to its own;
Which wields the world with never-wearied love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.
She is a portion of the loveliness
Which once she made more lovely.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822)
I was loved, therefore I am
I was loved, therefore I am;
And in being loved, I am treasured.
When I peeled away my layers,
And all that was left was my essence,
The bareness of me,
I was still loved.
I was loved, therefore I am;
And in being loved, I was able to grow.
In my mistakes held,
In my successes celebrated,
I was always loved.
I was loved, therefore I am;
And in being loved, I learned to love.
In the sun filled day,
In the ecstasy of the night,
I was loved and loved others.
To be loved is all you need:
I was loved…and so, I will always be.
Ana Draper
Death is nothing at all
Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you have always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without a trace of a shadow in it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was;
There is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval,
Somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well.
Henry Scott Holland (1847 – 1918)
Feel no guilt in laughter
Feel no guilt in laughter, she’d know how much you care.
Feel no sorrow in a smile that she is not here to share.
You cannot grieve forever; she would not want you to.
She’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 her back as clearly as though she were still here,
And fills you with the feeling that she is always near.
For if you keep those moments, you will never be apart
And she will live forever locked safely within your heart.
Anon
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