Funeral Poems

Let Me Go

 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.

- Christina Georgina Rossetti

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

Warm summer sun

Warm summer sun
Shine kindly here,

Warm southern wind
Blow softly here.

Green sod above
Lie light, lie light.

Good night, dear heart
Good night, good night.

- Mark Twain

I have a rendezvous with Death

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

- Alan Seeger

Inarticulate Grief

Let the sea beat its thin torn hands
In anguish against the shore,
Let it moan
Between headland and cliff;

Let the sea shriek out its agony
Across waste sands and marshes,
And clutch great ships,
Tearing them plate from steel plate
In reckless anger;

Let it break the white bulwarks
Of harbour and city;

Let it sob and scream and laugh
In a sharp fury,
With white salt tears
Wet on its written face;

Ah! let the sea still be mad
And crash in madness among the shaking rocks—
For the sea is the cry of our sorrow.

Richard Aldington