Dear Friends,

Thanks for purchasing my eulogy kit. This document contains 300 poems that you can use within your eulogy. These were written by several different writers – some are classics and some are contemporary. Poems are most commonly used to close the eulogy as a toast.

I hand picked these. I obtained most of them from the Internet. I do not own the rights to these. They are owned by their respective authors. Please feel free to distribute this document.

My Very Best,

Margaret Marquisiwww.besteulogyspeeches.com

Fallen Leaves

Leaves that blow from autumn treesPrepare the way for winter freezeTo chart the paths of moving timeA cycle plays out nature's rhyme

Though sometimes leaves do fall in springThe sound's an unfamiliar ringNew from buds the leaves they formThey grow amidst the sun so warm

So why do some release their bounds?And tumble gently towards the groundTo disconnect from what they knowAnd sacrifice the chance to grow

Only god can know these thingsAnd why he calls for leaves in springPerhaps leaves choose to ride the windTo find some place to start again

We'll Meet AgainTime to go, the light awaitsA friendly face by open gatesIt's not about what's left behindBut peace and joy you're soon to find

Close your eyes be not afraidLife's not about how long you stayedIt's a reflection of the lives you touchTo whom you've cared and loved so much

The time is short, yet all is doneYou need not race the setting sunFor dawn is near a world anewIs there and is awaiting you

The time for tears is long since goneIts time for you to be moving inNo need this time for long good-byesWe'll meet again just close your eyes

The Dance

Express your thoughts to me through soundTake my hand and spin me roundJourneys cross the ball room floorLike silhouettes from time before

To grace the stage of life againAnd dream of days that might have beenThe lights come up the stage is setRepayment from a distant debt

And so the music plays for meAnd lifts me up like on a seaAdrift on waves of distant thoughtRehearsing all the steps we're taught

You wish to hold the futureIn context with the pastThe dreams and sounds before usIn you now they are cast

Lost LoveTommy P. O'Connell

I've made mistakes and its no disgrace,the final page that I can't eraseeven though I look back on my past,could have loved you more could have made it lastTime has changed me I hope you'll see,no one could bring your love to meThe fork in the road looks more like a knife,when the cards have been dealt and pains in your lifemy time has come there ringing the bell,so long my love, goodbye and farewell.

When Cardinals FlyCardinals fly o'er mountain streamsAloft with all my hopes and dreamsTo see you both off on your ownI wish you all the joy I’ve known

The walks we took were manyBut these next steps are fewAlone you walk this final pathThen turn and leave as two

If ever should you need meJust take a walk outsideAnd cast your thoughts upon the windsAnd watch the cardinals fly

ReflectionsImages now, of way back whenAnother girl you might have beenOne in the shadows and one in the lightEach casts a glow which is equally bright

So much together yet so much apartWhere does one end and the other one startI look at you now and so much has changedI wonder how much of it was prearranged

There's so much to ask you, so much to sayIf I just had one minute, one hour, one dayNo one can know you the way that I doYou're part of me, and I’m part of you

I wish I could be there, but somethings can't beJust look with your heart and your eyes will soon seeA face in the shadows and a voice you might hear"Remember I love you, my daughter, my dear"

In LondonDylan Thomas

Never until the mankind makingBird beast and flowerFathering and all humbling darknessTells with silence the last light breakingAnd the still hourIs come of the sea tumbling in harnessAnd I must enter again the roundZion of the water beadAnd the synagogue of the ear of cornShall I let pray the shadow of a soundOr sow my salt seedIn the least valley of sackcloth to mournThe majesty and burning of the child's death.I shall not murderThe mankind of her going with a grave truthNor blaspheme down the stations of the breathWith any furtherElegy of innocence and youth.Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,Robed in the long friends,The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,Secret by the unmourning waterOf the riding Thames.After the first death, there is no other.

Do Not Stand by My Grave and WeepMary Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep,I am not there, I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow.I am the diamond glint on snow.I am the sunlight on ripened grain.I am the gentle autumn rain.When you wake in the morning hush,I am the swift, uplifting rushOf quiet birds in circling flight.I am the soft starlight at night.Do not stand at my grave and weep.I am not there, I do not sleep.(Do not stand at my grave and cry.I am not there, I did not die!)

Four Candles for YouUnknown

The first candle represents our grief.The pain of losing you is intense.It reminds us of the depth of our love for you.This second candle represents our courage.To confront our sorrow,To comfort each other,To change our lives.This third candle we light in your memory.For the times we laughed,The times we cried,The times we were angry with each other,The silly things you did,The caring and joy you gave us.This fourth candle we light for our love.We light this candle that your light will always shine.As we enter this holiday season and share this night of remembrancewith our family and friends.We cherish the special place in our heartsthat will always be reserved for you.We thank you for the giftyour living brought to each of us.We love you.We remember you.

In MemoriamGeorge Santayana

With you a part of me hath passed away;For in the peopled forest of my mindA tree made leafless by this wintry windShall never don again its green array.Chapel and fireside, country road and bay,Have something of their friendliness resigned;Another, if I would, I could not find,And I am grown much older in a day.But yet I treasure in my memoryYour gift of charity, and young hearts ease,And the dear honour of your amity;For these once mine, my life is rich with these.And I scarce know which part may greater be,--What I keep of you, or you rob from me.

Letting GoHeather Marie Covaleski

Letting go of everythingEverything I knewSurrendering for once and allIs just too hard to doNo matter what’s been said and doneThe pain you put me throughI still remember something elseAnd can’t let go of youI will always hang onI will continueFor all of eternityForever loving youThough time may pass I find myselfTrapped within the pastLeft behind in what once wasAnd all we had amassedWondering where my love wentHow you left so fastIf only I could have knownIt would never lastI will always hang onI will continueFor all of eternityForever loving youLingering thoughts of you remainAnd so I still grieveHidden pain beneath the maskFor none to perceiveMoving forward is so hardWhen I still believeIt wasn’t time for us to endToo soon for you to leaveI will always hang onI will continueFor all of eternityForever loving you

Deaths of FlowersEdith Joy Scovell

I would if I could chooseAge and die outwards as a tulip does;Not as this iris drawing in, in-coilingIts complex strange taut inflorescence, willingItself a bud again - though all achieved isNo more than a clenched sadness,The tears of gum not flowing.I would choose the tulips reckless way of going;Whose petals answer light, altering by fractionsFrom closed to wide, from one through many perfections,Til wreched, flamboyant, strayed beyond recall,Like flakes of fire they piecemeal fall.

SeptemberJennifer Michael Hecht

Tonight there must be people who are getting what they want.I let my oars fall into the water.Good for them. Good for them, getting what they want.The night is so still that I forget to breathe.The dark air is getting colder. Birds are leaving.Tonight there are people getting just what they need.The air is so still that it seems to stop my heart.I remember you in a black and white photographtaken this time of some year. You were leaning againsta half-shed tree, standing in the leaves the tree had lost.When I finally exhale it takes forever to be over.Tonight, there are people who are so happy,that they have forgotten to worry about tomorrow.Somewhere, people have entirely forgotten about tomorrow.My hand trails in the water.I should not have dropped those oars. Such a soft wind.

A Spiritual Journeyby Faye Kilday

Life is a spiritual journey fromthe first day of our birth,Life is a spiritual journey on thisbeautiful planet called earth.Life is a spiritual journey -we're here to learn all we can,Life is a spiritual journey -a special gift from God to man.

Light of DawnJames E. Stanley

I light a candle every day,Hoping the pain will fade away,But with the light of each new dawn,Another day and your still gone.

After FiveE.E. Cummings

after fivetimes the poemof thy remembrancesurprises with refrainof unreasoning summerthat by respondingways cloaked with renewalmy body turns towardtheeagain for the stars have beenfinished in the nobler trees andthe language of leaves repeatseventual perfectionwhile east deserves of dawn.i lie at length,breathingwith shut eyesthe sweet earth where thou liest

So Proud She Was to DieEmily Dickinson

So proud she was to dieIt made us all ashamedThat what we cherished, so unknownTo her desire seemed.So satisfied to goWhere none of us should be,Immediately, that anguish stoopedAlmost to jealousy.

I Am Always With You

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 guessHow 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 mustThen let your grief be comforted by trustThat 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 nearAnd if you listen with your heart, you'll hearAll my love around you soft and clearAnd then, when you come this way alone,I'll greet you with a smile and a "Welcome Home".

If Anybody's Friend Be DeadEmily Dickinson

If anybody's friend be dead,It 's sharpest of the themeThe thinking how they walked alive,At such and such a time.Their costume, of a Sunday,Some manner of the hair, --A prank nobody knew but them,Lost, in the sepulchre.How warm they were on such a day:You almost feel the date,So short way off it seems; and now,They 're centuries from that.How pleased they were at what you said;You try to touch the smile,And dip your fingers in the frost:When was it, can you tell,You asked the company to tea,Acquaintance, just a few,And chatted close with this grand thingThat don't remember you?Past bows and invitations,Past interview, and vow,Past what ourselves can estimate, --That makes the quick of woe!

If Anybody's Friend Be DeadWalt Whitman

The two old, simple problems ever intertwined,Close home, elusive, present, baffled, grappled.By each successive age insoluble, pass'd on,To ours to-day--and we pass on the same.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good NightDylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The BeyondElla Wheeler Wilcox

It seemeth such a little way to me,Across to that strange country, the Beyond;And yet, not strange, for it has grown to beThe home of those of whom I am so fond;They make it seem familiar and most dear,As journeying friends bring distant countries near.

And so for me there is no sting to death,And so the grave has lost its victory;It is but crossing with abated breathAnd white, set face, a little strip of sea,To find the loved ones waiting on the shore,More beautiful, more precious than before.

Ashes Of LifeEdna St. Vincent Millay

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;Eat I must, and sleep I will, – and would that night were here!But ah! – to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!Would that it were day again! – with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do;This or that or what you will is all the same to me; –But all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through, –There’s little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, and the neighbors knock and borrow,And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrowThere’s this little street and this little house.

I Wasn't Ready To Let You Go

Dollie Wilson

I wasn't ready to let you go. Even though I'm told that it was your time. I can't get that through my mind. I wasn't ready to let you go.

It wasn't meant to be that way. why did we go out that dreadful day. It wasn't meant to be that way.

The scene of the crash plays time and time again through my brain, as I cry in agony over the pain.

I reach out and take you by the hand and ask Mom are you okay? You answer I don't think so and slip away.

No I scream, this can not be. this can not be happening I cry, I beg you to stay. This can not be happening this way.

A careless driver in a hurry. You beat the cancer, got through the worst of the chemo, looking forward to the future, without a worry. A careless driver in a hurry.

Suddenly in a flash, the sound of metal scraping, glass breaking. It took a few seconds for your life to end. It took a few seconds for a life time of pain and sorrow to begin.

Momma, will the tears ever dry? I ask this as I wipe my eyes. I'm told in time. But I don't think so. I wasn't ready to let you go.

A Different SelfSusan Jacoby

Most people, though, manage to make their way through the painful stages of grief andeventually regain their emotional balance. What they need desperately are caring friendsand relatives who allow them to grieve in their own way, at their own pace and who,above all, will not insist that they act like their “old selves.” For no one who has suffereda terrible loss will ever be her old self again. She may be a different self or even a betterself, but she will never regain the identity that was untouched by grief.

R.I.P

Jessica

He was my life He was my soul He was my grandfather who had to go He was ill with no cure Who’s heart gave up and wasn’t sure Why he left me in this world With no one to talk to Not even to hold Now that he’s gone I sit here and cry Waiting for him to say my last goodbye I want him to know I'll be alright That one day I'll be by his side Day by day Year by year I lived it like he were still here With a smile on my face I kiss his picture and put it in place

Abide With MeHenry Francis Lyte

Abide with me! fast falls the eventide,The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;Change and decay in all around I see:O Thou, who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,Familiar, condescending, patient, free.Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea –Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour;What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold then Thy cross before my closing eyes;Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;In life and death, O Lord, abide with me.

Youth And AgeE. B. White

This is what youth must figure out: Girls, love, and living. The having, the not having, The spending and giving,And the melancholy time of not knowing.

This is what age must learn about: The ABC of dying. The going, yet not going, The loving and leaving,And the unbearable knowing and knowing.

After I Have GoneVera Arlett

Speak my name softly after I have gone.I loved the quiet things, the flowers and the dew,Field mice; birds homing; and the frost that shoneOn nursery windows when my years were few;And autumn mists subduing hill and plainAnd blurring outlines of those older moodsThat follow, after loss and grief and pain –And last and best, a gentle laugh with friends,All bitterness foregone, and evening near.

If we be kind and faithful when day ends,We shall not meet that ragged starveling ‘fear’As one by one we take the unknown way –Speak my name softly – there’s no more to say –

Afternoon In FebruaryHenry Wadsworth Longfellow

The day is ending,The night is descending;The marsh is frozen,The river dead.

Through clouds like ashesThe red sun flashesOn village windowsThat glimmer red.

The snow recommences;The buried fencesMark no longerThe road o’er the plain;

While through the meadows,Like fearful shadows,Slowly passesA funeral train.

The bell is pealing,And every feelingWithin me respondsTo the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,My heart is bewailingAnd tolling withinLike a funeral bell.

After The BurialJames Russell Lowell

Yes, faith is a goodly anchor;When skies are sweet as a psalm,At the bows it lolls so stalwart,In its bluff, broad-shouldered calm.

And when over breakers to leewardThe tattered surges are hurled,It may keep our head to the tempest,With its grip on the base of the world.

But, after the shipwreck, tell meWhat help in its iron thews,Still true to the broken hawser,Deep down among sea-weed and ooze?

In the breaking gulfs of sorrow,When the helpless feet stretch outAnd find in the deeps of darknessNo footing so solid as doubt,

Then better one spar of Memory,One broken plank of the Past,That our human heart may cling to,Though hopeless of shore at last!

To the spirit its splendid conjectures,To the flesh its sweet despair,Its tears o’er the thin-worn locketWith its anguish of deathless hair!

Immortal? I feel it and know it,Who doubts it of such as she?But that is the pang’s very secret, –Immortal away from me.

There’s a narrow ridge in the graveyardWould scarce stay a child in his race,But to me and my thought it is widerThan the star-sown vague of Space.

Your logic, my friend, is perfect,Your moral most drearily true;But, since the earth clashed on her coffin,I keep hearing that, and not you. Console if you will, I can bear it;

’Tis a well-meant alms of breath;But not all the preaching since AdamHas made Death other than Death.

It is pagan; but wait till you feel it, –That jar of our earth, that dull shockWhen the ploughshare of deeper passionTears down to our primitive rock.

Communion in spirit! Forgive me,But I, who am earthly and weak,Would give all my incomes from dream-landFor a touch of her hand on my cheek.

That little shoe in the corner,So worn and wrinkled and brown,With its emptiness confutes you,And argues your wisdom down.

The Empty Chair

Amidst the anger, pain and hateIn a lonely corridor I waitTo say hello or say goodbyeTo friends I see now passing by

It's not the same I’m just a blurThey only speak of me as herI walk these halls both day and nightThough just a shadow out of site

Time will pass and memories fadeYou'll soon be gone, but here I stayedA memory of gentler timesOf lullabies and nursery rhymes

When graduation comes to passAnd before you say goodbye to classDon't forget I’m always thereSo save for me an empty chair

AfterwardsThomas Hardy

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbors say,‘He was a man who used to notice such things’?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink,The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alightUpon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,‘To him this must have been a familiar sight.’

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,One may say, ‘He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.’

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,‘He was one who had an eye for such mysteries’?

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,Till they rise again, as they were a new bell’s boom,‘He hears it not now, but used to notice such things’?

The Gift

Did you believe in God before?And what do you think now?This must be part of some great planBut still you wonder how

Who steals away a mother young?With child still at her breastAnd leaves a family wonderingAs they lay her body rest

Look not at this for blamingRather completion of a taskThe creation of a childIn whose glow now you do bask

Joy oft mixes with sorrowIn a sometimes painful truthBut your lives will be enrichedWith the light of shining youth

All The Things He LovedFrances Gunther

My grief, I find, is not desolation or rebellion at universal law or deity. I find grief to bemuch simpler and sadder…

All the things he loved tear at my heart because he is no longer here on earth to enjoythem.

All Things Decay And DieRobert Herrick

All things decay with time: the forest seesThe growth and down-fall of her aged trees;That timber tall, which three-score lustres stoodThe proud dictator of the state-like wood,I mean the sovereign of all plants, the oak,Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver’s stroke.

Nan

Terrie Brushette

I lie here every night thinking of you Tears fall from my eyes feeling so blue Why did you leave me all alone You got your wings and off you have flown

To a better place of light and love The perfect garden in Gods sky above Where once in a while when I feel low You will peek in on me and watch me grow

Because now I am older I am able to see God didn’t take you away from me He just made you an angel with wings to fly To look after all the children up in the sky

You’re the perfect one for the job I’ve wiped my tears, no longer do I sob Now I sit here and think about the days That I sing, talk and shout your praise

Never will I forget my lovely dear Nan And no more tears will I shed Because now I know she’s in a better place And I keep her alive in my heart and my head

From All Things Will DieAlfred, Lord Tennyson

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowingUnder my eye;

Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowingOver the sky.

One after another the white clouds are fleeting;Every heart this May morning in joyance is beatingFull merrily;Yet all things must die.

The stream will cease to flow;The wind will cease to blow;The clouds will cease to fleet;The heart will cease to beat;For all things must die.

All things must die.Nine times goes the passing bell:Ye merry souls, farewell.The old earthHad a birth,As all men know,Long ago.And the old earth must die.So let the warm winds range,And the blue wave beat the shore;For even and mornYe will never seeThro’ eternity.All things were born.Ye will come never more,For all things must die.

Always Saying FarewellAdlai Stevenson

We are always saying farewell in this world, always standing at the edge of a loss,attempting to retrieve some human meaning from the silence, something which wasprecious and is gone.

You Meant So MuchCassie Mitchell

You meant so much to all of usYou were special and that's no lieYou brightened up the darkest dayAnd the cloudiest sky

Your smile alone warmed heartsYour laugh was like music to hearI would give absolutely anythingTo have you well and standing near

Not a second passesWhen you're not on our mindsYour love we will never forgetThe hurt will ease in time

Many tears I have seen and criedThey have all poured out like rainI know that you are happy nowAnd no longer in any pain.

As You Love MeJohn Oxenham

As you love me, let there beNo mourning when I go,No tearful eyes,No hopeless sighs,No woe, – nor even sadness!Indeed I would not have you sad,For I myself shall be full glad,With the high triumphant gladnessOf a soul made freeOf God’s sweet liberty.

No windows darkened;For my ownWill be flung wide, as ne’er before,To catch the radiant inpourOf Love that shall in full atoneFor all the ills that I have done;And the good things left undone;

No voices hushed;My own, full-flushedWith an immortal hope, will riseIn ecstasies of new-born blissAnd joyful melodies.Rather, of your sweet courtesy,Rejoice with meAt my soul’s loosing from captivity.

Wish me “Bon Voyage!”As you do a friendWhose joyous visit finds its happy end.And bid me both “adieu!”And “au revoir!”

Since, though I come no more,I shall be waiting there to greet you,At His Door.And, as the feet of The Bearers treadThe ways I trod,Think not of me as dead,But rather –“Happy, thrice happy, he whose course is sped!He has gone home – to God,His Father!”

I ReckonKayla

I reckon I miss you and I probably always will this is so hard to get over like swallowing a bitter pill

I reckon I shouldn’t be crying because this is not how you’d want it to be knowing you’re in your eternal home now singing with glee

I reckon you are looking down on us probably proud of us all you always told me how god would hold me and never let me fall

I reckon I have to get through this I must try to be strong on the outside you can’t tell it but on the inside something is very wrong

I reckon I’ll be sad for a while but soon I’ll realize I’ll see you one day up there don’t think I stopped missing you don’t think I don’t care

we’ve had so many good times tons of laughs as well the memories are all coming back to me now like a wonderful spell

gurlie I hope you know you will be missed a lot you were loved by so many you’ll never be forgot!!

At A Child’s GraveRobert G. Ingersoll

I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I wish to take from every grave itsfear. Here in this world, where life and death are equal things, all should be braveenough to meet what all the dead have met…

Why should we fear that which will come to all that is?

We cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater blessing – life or death. We do notknow whether the grave is the end of this life, or the door of another, or whether thenight here is not somewhere else at dawn. Neither can we tell which is the morefortunate – the child dying in its mother’s arms, before its lips have learned to form aword, or he who journeys all the length of life’s uneven road, painfully taking the lastslow steps with staff and crutch.

Every cradle asks us, “Whence?” and every coffin, “Whither?” The poor barbarian,weeping above his dead, can answer these questions as intelligently as the robed priestof the most authentic creed.

No man, standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right toprophesy a future filled with pain and tears. It may be that death gives all there is ofworth to life. If those we press and strain against our hearts could never die, perhapsthat love would wither from the earth. Maybe this common fate treads from out the pathsbetween our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate, and I would rather live and lovewhere death is king, than have eternal life where love is not.

The dead do not suffer. And if they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours.We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits usall. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: help for the living, hope for the dead.

AwayJames Whitcomb Riley

I cannot say and I will not sayThat she is dead, she is just away,With a cheery smile and a wave of handShe has wandered into an unknown landAnd left us dreaming how very fairIts needs must be, since she lingers there.

And you, oh you, who the wildest yearnFrom the old time steps and the glad returnThink of her faring on, as dear,in the love of there, as the love of hereThink of her still the same I say,She is not dead, she is just away.

The Beauty Of DeathPart One – The CallingKahlil Gibran

Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love andLet me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights;Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, andScatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body;Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with perfume,And read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead.Let me rest in the arms of Slumber, for my open eyes are tired;Let the silver-stringed lyre quiver and soothe my spirit;Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart.

Sing of the past as you behold the dawn of hope in my eyes, forIts magic meaning is a soft bed upon which my heart rests.Dry your tears, my friends, and raise your heads as the flowersRaise their crowns to greet the dawn.Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of lightBetween my bed and the infinite;Hold your breath and listen with me to the beckoning rustle ofHer white wings.

Come close and bid me farewell; touch my eyes with smiling lips.Let the children grasp my hands with soft and rosy fingers;Let the ages place their veined hands upon my head and bless me;Let the virgins come close and see the shadow of God in my eyes,And hear the echo of His will racing with my breath.

Part Two – The Ascending

I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in theFirmament of complete and unbound freedom;I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds areHiding the hills from my eyes.

The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and theHands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses;The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specterThat looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelightAnd red as the twilight.

The songs of the waves and the hymns of the streamsAre scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence;And I can hear naught but the music of EternityIn exact harmony with the spirit’s desires.

I am cloaked in full whiteness;

I am in comfort; I am in peace.

Part Three – The Remains

Unwrap me from this white linen shroud and clothe meWith leaves of jasmine and lilies;Take my body from the ivory casket and let it restUpon pillows of orange blossoms.

Lament me not, but sing songs of youth and joy;Shed not tears upon me, but sing of harvest and the winepress;Utter no sigh of agony, but draw upon my face with yourFinger the symbol of Love and Joy.

Disturb not the air’s tranquility with chanting and requiems,But let your hearts sing with me the song of Eternal Life;Mourn me not with apparel of black,But dress in color and rejoice with me;Talk not of my departure with sighs in your hearts; closeYour eyes and you will see me with you forevermore.

Place me upon clusters of leaves andCarry me upon your friendly shoulders andWalk slowly to the deserted forest.Take me not to the crowded burying ground lest my slumberBe disrupted by the rattling of bones and skulls.

Carry me to the cypress woods and dig my grave where violetsAnd poppies grow not in the other’s shadow;Let my grave be deep so that the flood will notCarry my bones to the open valley;Let my grave be wide, so that the twilight shadowsWill come and sit by me.

Take from me all earthly raiment and place me deep in myMother Earth; and place me with care upon my mother’s breast.Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixedWith seeds of jasmine, lilies and myrtle; and when theyGrow above me, and thrive on my body’s element they willBreathe the fragrance of my heart into space;And reveal even to the sun the secret of my peace;And sail with the breeze and comfort the wayfarer.

Leave me then, friends – leave me and depart on mute feet,As the silence walks in the deserted valley;Leave me to God and disperse yourselves slowly, as the almondAnd apple blossoms disperse under the vibration of Nisan’s breeze.Go back to the joy of your dwellings and you will find there

That which Death cannot remove from you and me.Leave with peace, for what you see here is far away in meaningFrom the earthly world. Leave me.

Daddy's Little GirlPunkin

If I had my life to do over,I'd have chosen you to be my dadonce more.Even if it meant losing you again,It's worth all the tears in theworld.You were my sunshine when skieswere gray.I loved you and honored you;You took all my tears away.I was happy to be with you,Proud to be your little girl.Sometimes we would argue,But to me you meant the world.Your love was always pure;You treated me as your own.Your time seemed all too short andI feel so alone.What can I take from this?My heart is completely crushed.But nothing loved is ever lost -And you are loved so much.

BereavementMichael Shepherd

What is it, when we mourn and grieve and cryFor those we loved, and love – now passed away –That gives our pain such brute totality;So vital, that we almost love that pain(Our faces sometimes radiant in grief…),Unwilling to let go pain’s absolute,Since there hides knowledge deeper than beliefOf that sole absolute itself, the rootOf all our being, oneness that we shareWith those with whom we sought our selves to prove?That pain, which barely differs from a prayerTo know – by suffering deepest hurt of love:Yes! Let us dive into that holy deepOf total grief and love: then, can self weep?

Be Still My SoulKatharina Amalia von Schlegel

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.Leave to thy God to order and provide;In every change, He faithful will remain.Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly FriendThrough thorny ways leads to a joyful end.Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertakeTo guide the future, as He has the past.Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still knowHis voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,And all is darkened in the vale of tears,Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.

Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay,From His own fullness, all He takes away.Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening onWhen we shall be forever with the Lord.When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.Be still, my soul: when change and tears are pastAll safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praiseOn earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high;Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divineThrough passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

Be Swift To LoveHenri Frédéric Amiel

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those whoare traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!

Borrowed HopeEloise Cole

Lend me your hope for a while,I seem to have mislaid mine.Lost and hopeless feelings accompany me daily.Pain and confusion are my companions.I know not where to turn.Looking ahead to the future timesDoes not bring forth images of renewed hope.I see mirthless times, pain-filled days, and more tragedy.Lend me your hope for a while,I seem to have mislaid mine.Hold my hand and hug me,Listen to all my ramblings.

I need to unleash the pain and let it tumble out.Recovery seems so far and distant,The road to healing, a long and lonely one.Stand by me. Offer me your presence,Your ears and your love.

Acknowledge my pain, it is so real and ever present.I am overwhelmed with sad and conflicting thoughts.Lend me your hope for a while.A time will come when I will heal,And I will lend my renewed hope to others.

Break, Break, BreakAlfred, Lord Tennyson

Break, break, break,On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!And I would that my tongue could utterThe thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy,That he shouts with his sister at play!O, well for the sailor lad,That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go onTo their haven under the hill;But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, breakAt the foot of thy crags, O Sea!But the tender grace of a day that is deadWill never come back to me.

Brief Our DaysKenneth Patton

Brief our days, but long for singing,When to sing is made our call.For a million stars now flingingLight upon this earthly ball.

In a setting of what splendorAre we given chance to renderTribute for the whirling skyWhere we live and where we die.

The Bustle In A HouseEmily Dickinson

The bustle in a houseThe morning after deathIs solemnest of industriesEnacted upon earth.

The sweeping up the heartAnd putting love awayWe shall not want to use againUntil eternity.

But Not ForgottenDorothy Parker

I think no matter where you stray,That I shall go with you a way.Though you may wander sweeter lands,You will not forget my hands,Nor yet the way I held my headNor the tremulous things I said.

You will still see me, small and whiteAnd smiling, in the secret night,And feel my arms about you whenThe day comes fluttering back again.

I think, no matter where you be,You’ll hold me in your memoryAnd keep my image there without me,By telling later loves about me.

The CactusLaurence Hope (Adela Florence Nicolson)

The scarlet flower, with never a sister leaf,Stemless, springs from the edge of the cactus thorn:Thus from the ragged wounds of desperate griefA beautiful thought, perfect and pure, is born.

Death Is Nothing New

Skylor Mitchell

To me death is nothing new, It can come with light speed and without a clue To some people it comes quickly and painless For others it comes slowly with soreness

As I have said, to me death is nothing new, My father died when I was just a few The doctors said death just happened to him How old was he? Just twenty-five then

Again as I have said to me death is nothing new, My great grand-ma and grand both died before I was a decade To everyone in the family the death seemed like a motorcade Oh how I miss all that they did for me and my grand-ma

To me death is nothing new, My step grand parents went askew Grand-ma Vera and Grand-pa John They are now gone as with my step dad

As I have said, to me death is nothing new, Oh my step dad. To me it seemed like he would never go But luckily it slow

Again as I have said to me death is nothing new, It can come with light speed and without a clue To some people it comes quickly and painless For others it comes slowly with soreness.

Chalice LightingGordon B. McKeeman

“Let there be light!“ Let it shine in dark places, in moments of pain, in times of grief, in the darkness of hatred, violence, oppression, where there is discouragement and despair.

Wherever darkness is to be put to flight,“Let there be light!”

Clean Is The Autumn WindLi Po

Clean is the autumn wind,Splendid the autumn moon,The blown leaves are heaped and scattered,The ice-cold raven starts from its roost.Dreaming of you – when shall I see you again?On this night sorrow fills my heart.

The Clock Of LifeRobert H. Smith

The clock of life is wound but onceAnd no man has the power,To tell just when the hands will stopAt late or early hour.

The present only is our own,So live, love, toil with a will,Place no faith in “Tomorrow,”For the Clock may then be still.

A Common DestinyDavid Eaton

All living substance, all substanceof energy, being, and purpose,are united and share the same destiny.

All people,those we love and those we know not of,are united and share the same destiny.

Birth-to-deathwe share this unity withthe sun,earth,our brothers and sisters,strangers,flowers of the field,snowflakes,volcanoes and moon beams.

Birth – Life – DeathUnknown – Known – Unknown.

May we have the faith to accept this wonderful mysteryand build upon its everlasting truth.

The CostDorothy N. Monroe (dates unknown) Death is not too high a price to payfor having lived. Mountains never die,nor do the seas or rocks or endless sky.

Through countless centuries of time, they stayeternal, deathless. Yet they never live!

If choice there were, I would not hesitateto choose mortality. Whatever Fatedemanded in return for life I’d give,for, never to have seen the fertile plainsnor heard the winds nor felt the warm sun on sandsbeside the salty sea, nor touched the handsof those I love – without these, all the gainsof timelessness would not be worth one dayof living and of loving; come what may.

Crossing The BarAlfred, Lord Tennyson

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 deepTurns 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 PlaceThe flood may bear me far,I hope to see my Pilot face to faceWhen I have crost the bar.

Goodbye, My BrotherLisa

My brother Greg an awesome guy,I don't know why you had to die.You were so cute as a little boy,You smiled at us and brought us joy.

Even though we had our little fights,Over silly things like phone lines and wiring lights,I never wanted to be a pest,I needed your skills, cause you're the best.

I'm glad those times, were only a few,It was hard for me to argue with you,But that's just me, as you are you,And in the end you always came through.

This is Lanesville where you are from,We all are here with Deb and Mom,Our hearts are broken, as you know,We really can't bear to let you go.

Sometimes you were so crazy and loony,Especially with the friends who call you "Cooney",I know that everyone here will agree with me,That the Lanesville Crew is the best there could ever be.

We wish so much that you were here,Or just down "The Cove" havin' a beer.It's happy thoughts that will get us through,Like all the fun we shared with you.

And now my poem will come to an end,Until the day we meet again,I pray that you are now at peace.Goodbye Greg With Love From Lis

From CymbelineWilliam Shakespeare

Act IV, Scene II

Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun,Nor the furious winter’s rages;Thou thy worldly task hast done,Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:Golden lads and girls all must,As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is EndedJohn Ellerton

The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended,The darkness falls at Thy behest;To Thee our morning hymns ascended,Thy praise shall sanctify our rest.

We thank Thee that thy Church, unsleepingWhile earth rolls onward into light,Through all the world her watch is keepingAnd rests not now by day nor night.

As o’er each continent and islandThe dawn leads on another day,The voice of prayer is never silent,Nor dies the strain of praise away.

The sun that bids us rest is wakingOur brethren ’neath the western sky,And hour by hour fresh lips are makingThy wondrous doings heard on high.

So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall never,Like earth’s proud empires, pass away;Thy kingdom stands, and grows for ever,Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.

From All Lovely ThingsConrad Aiken

All lovely things will have an ending,All lovely things will fade and die.

The DeadCharles Heavysege

How great unto the living seem the dead!How sacred, solemn; how heroic grown;How vast and vague, as they obscurely treadThe shadowy confines of the dim unknown! –For they have met the monster that we dread,Have learned the secret not to mortal shown.

E’en as gigantic shadows on the wallThe spirit of the daunted child amaze,So on us thoughts of the departed fall,And with phantasma fill our gloomy gaze.

Awe and deep wonder lend the living lines,And hope and ecstasy the borrowed beams;While fitful fancy the full form divines,And all is what imagination dreams.

Dear Lovely DeathLangston Hughes

Dear lovely Death,That taketh all things under wing –Never to kill –Only to changeInto some other thingThis suffering fleshTo make it either more or less,But not again the same –Dear lovely Death,Change is thy other name.

Death, Be Not ProudJohn Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called theeMighty and dreadful, for thou art not so,For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrowDie not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,Much pleasure, then, from thee much more must flow,And soonest our best men with thee do go,Rest of their bones, and souls’ delivery.

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,And dost with poison, war and sickness dwell,And poppy or charms can make us sleep as wellAnd better than thy stroke. Why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.

Death Cannot Destroy LoveCharles H. Brent

Of course no one can help the suffering which comes in bereavement. Indeed, whowould escape it if he could? It is the one means left to us by which to declare the realityand depth of our love for the one taken. Were there no pain it would mean there hadbeen no love or too little love. Go on unanxiously with the glad knowledge that you andyours are tied by a bond against which death is as powerless as a cloud to extinguishthe sun or a hammer to destroy a moonbeam.

Death Can Show Us The WayElisabeth Kübler-Ross

Death can show us the way, for when we know and understand completely that our timeon this earth is limited, and that we have no way of knowing when it will be over, then we must live each day as if it were the only one we had.

Death Has Taken Thee TooHenry Wadsworth Longfellow

Death has taken thee too, and thou hast the dew of thy youth. He has placed thee on hisbosom, and his stern countenance wears a smile. The far country toward which wejourney seems nearer to us, and the way less dark, for thou hast gone before, passingso quietly to thy rest, that day itself dies not more calmly.

Death, In Itself, Is NothingJohn Dryden (1631-1700)

Death, in itself, is nothing; but we fear,To be we know not what, we know not where.

Death Is A ChallengeLeo Buscaglia

Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time... It tells us to tell each other right nowthat we love each other.

Death Is But An IntermissionSeneca

Death, of which we so much fear, and from which we shrink, is but an intermission oflife, and not its destruction.

Death Is Nothing At AllHenry Scott Holland

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 wewere to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me inthe easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forcedair of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that weenjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever thehousehold word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghostof 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… Why should I be out of mind because I amout of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just roundthe corner. All is well.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before – onlybetter, infinitely happier and forever – we will all be one together in Christ.

Death Stands Above MeWalter Savage Landor

Death stands above me, whispering lowI know not what into my ear;Of his strange language all I knowIs, there is not a word of fear.

Death This YearJohn Holmes

Death this year has taken menWhose kind we shall not see again.Pride and skill and friendliness,Wrath and wisdom and delight,Are shining still, but shining less,And clouded to the common sight.Time will show them clear again.

Time will give us other menWith names to write in burning goldWhen they are great and we are old,But these were royal-hearted, rare.Memory keeps with loving careDeeds they did and tales they told.But living men are hard to spare.

DesiderataMax Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be insilence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speakyour truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; theytoo have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compareyourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greaterand lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in thechanging fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is fullof trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is: many persons strive for highideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself; especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in theface of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurturestrength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself withdark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe,no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it isclear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever yourlabors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With allits sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Dirge Without MusicEdna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. CrownedWith lilies and with laurel they go, but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,A formula, a phrase remains, but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curledIs the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the graveGently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

The Divine WeaverAuthor unknown

A man’s life is laid in a loom of timeTo a pattern he does not see.While the Weaver works and the shuttles flyTill the end of eternity.

Some shuttles are filled with silver thread,And some with threads of gold;While often but the darker hueIs all that they may hold.But the weaver watches with skilful eyeEach shuttle fly to and fro,And sees the pattern so deftly wroughtAs the loom works sure and slow.

God surely planned that patternEach thread – the dark and the fair –Was chosen by his master skillAnd placed in the web with care.He only knows the beautyAnd guides the shuttles which holdThe threads so unattractiveAs well as the threads of gold.

Not till the loom is silent.And the shuttles cease to flyShall God unroll the patternAnd explain the reason whyThe dark threads are as needfulIn the weaver’s skillful hand,As the threads of gold and silverIn the pattern he had planned.

Do Everything For GodSaint Francis de Sales

Do everything for God, uniting yourself to Him by a mere upward glance, or by theoverflowing of your heart towards Him. Never be in a hurry… Do not lose your inwardpeace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. Commend all toGod, and then lie still and be at rest… Whatever happens, abide steadfast in adetermination to cling simply to God, trusting to His eternal love for you; and if you findthat you have wandered forth from this shelter, recall your heart quietly and simply.

Down, Gently DownCarl Seaburg

Down, gently downSofter to sleepThan the bed of nightFrom the littlenessGo Down, gently downWider to wakeThan need of sunInto the greatnessGo

Each Person That Has Ever LivedJohn M. Ludwig

Each person that has ever lived has had the same problem. They wanted to beremembered by everyone for what they were. To be forgotten is worse than death.People wanted to be remembered by other things than books and stories. But in the endthat’s all we can be remembered by. There’s nothing you can do at this point but live.But when I’m to die I want to be remembered by one thing. I want people to say ‘He wasthe type of person that believed and saw the good in others even when they couldn’tbelieve or see it in themselves.’ That is how I want to be remembered.

Early This Morning – A Lighter HeartC.S. Lewis Something quite unexpected has happened. It came this morning early. For variousreasons, not in themselves at all mysterious, my heart was lighter than it had been formany weeks. For one thing, I suppose I am recovering physically from a good deal ofmere exhaustion. ... And suddenly, at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H. least,I remembered her best. Indeed, it was something (almost) better than memory; aninstantaneous, unanswerable impression. To say it was like a meeting would be goingtoo far. Yet there was that in it which tempts one to use those words. It was as if thelifting of the sorrow removed a barrier.

Why has no one told me these things? How easily I might have misjudged another manin the same situation? I might have said, ‘He's got over it. He’s forgotten his wife,’ whenthe truth was, ‘He remembers her better because he has partly got over it.’

Such was the fact. And I believe I can make sense of it. You can't see anything properlywhile your eyes are blurred with tears. You can't, in most things, get what you want ifyou want it too desperately: anyway, you can't get the best out of it. ‘Now! Let’s have areal good talk’ reduces everyone to silence. ‘I must get a good sleep tonight’ ushers inhours of wakefulness. Delicious drinks are wasted on a really ravenous thirst. Is itsimilarly the very intensity of the longing that draws the iron curtain, that makes us feelwe are staring into a vacuum when we think about our dead?

Early DeathHartley Coleridge

She passed away like morning dewBefore the sun was high;So brief her time, she scarcely knewThe meaning of a sigh.

As round the rose its soft perfume,Sweet love around her floated;Admired she grew – while mortal doomCrept on, unfeared, unnoted.

Love was her guardian Angel here,But Love to Death resigned her;Though Love was kind, why should we fearBut holy Death is kinder?

Eden RockCharles Causley

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:My father, twenty-five, in the same suitOf Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier JackStill two years old and trembling at his feet.

My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dressDrawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat,Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass.Her hair, the color of wheat, takes on the light.

She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straightFrom an old H.P. sauce-bottle, a screwOf paper for a cork; slowly sets outThe same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.

The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.My mother shades her eyes and looks my wayOver the drifted stream. My father spinsA stone along the water. Leisurely,They beckon to me from the other bank.

I hear them call, ‘See where the stream-path is!Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’

I had not thought that it would be like this.

ElegyD. H. Lawrence

Since I lost you, my darling, the sky has come near,And I am of it, the small sharp stars are quite near,The white moon going among them like a white bird among snow-berries,And the sound of her gently rustling in heaven like a bird I hear.

And I am willing to come to you now, my dear,As a pigeon lets itself off from a cathedral domeTo be lost in the haze of the sky, I would like to come,And be lost out of sight with you, and be gone like foam.

For I am tired, my dear, and if I could lift my feet,My tenacious feet from off the dome of the earthTo fall like a breath within the breathing windWhere you are lost, what rest, my love, what rest!

From An Elegy On The Death Of John DonneThomas Carew

…The flame of thy brave soul, that shot such heat and lightAs burnt our earth, and made our darkness bright…

Epitaph For A SoldierDavid McNicholl, Syria

Build me no monuments. Should my turn come,Please do not weep for me and waste your tears.Write not my name on honor rolls of fame, toCrumble with man’s memory through the years.Wear no dark clothes; speak in no saddened voice,Seeking rare virtues which did not exist.

I ask one thing – that in still, far-off days,Someone who knew me should in their daily rounds,Suddenly pause, caught by some sight or sound,Some glance, some phrase, some trick of memory’s waysWhich brings me to mind, then I shall wait,Eager with hope, perhaps to hear –‘How great if he were with us still!’And then at the end, all that I wish for is just –‘He was my friend!’

Epitaph On A FriendRobert Burns

An honest man here lies at rest,The friend of man, the friend of truth,The friend of age, and guide of youth:Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d,Few heads with knowledge so inform’d:If there’s another world, he lives in bliss;If there is none, he made the best of this.

Epitaph Upon A Child That DiedRobert Herrick

Here she lies, a pretty bud,Lately made of flesh and blood:Who as soon fell fast asleepAs her little eyes did peep.Give her strewings, but not stirThe earth that lightly covers her.

Even In Our SleepAeschylus

Even in our sleepPain which cannot forgetFalls drop by drop upon the heartUntil, in our own despair,Against our will,Comes wisdomThrough the awful grace of God.

EvolutionJohn Banister Tabb

Out of the dusk a shadow,Then, a spark.Out of the cloud a silence,Then, a lark.Out of the heart a rapture,Then, a pain.Out of the dead, cold ashes,Life again.

FarewellAnne Brontë

Farewell to Thee! But not farewellTo all my fondest thoughts of Thee;Within my heart they still shall dwellAnd they shall cheer and comfort me.

And who can tell but Heaven, at last,May answer all my thousand prayers,And bid the future pay the pastWith joy for anguish, smiles for tears.

Farewell, Sweet DustElinor Wylie

Now I have lost you, I must scatterAll of you on the air henceforth;Not that to me it can ever matterBut it’s only fair to the rest of the earth.

Now especially, when it is winterAnd the sun’s not half as bright as it was,Who wouldn’t be glad to find a splinterThat once was you, in the frozen grass?

Snowflakes, too, will be softer feathered,Clouds, perhaps, will be whiter plumed;Rain, whose brilliance you caught and gathered,Purer silver have resumed.

Farewell, sweet dust; I never was a miser:Once, for a minute, I made you mine:Now you are gone, I am none the wiserBut the leaves of the willow are as bright as wine.

FinisWalter Savage Landor

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife.Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art:I warm’d both hands before the fire of life;It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

For a Child Born DeadElizabeth Jennings

What ceremony can we fitYou into now? If you had comeOut of a warm noisy roomTo this, there’d be an oppositefor us to know you by. We couldImagine you living in a lively mood

And then look at the other side,The mood drawn out of you, the breathdefeated by the power of death.But, we have never seen you strideAmbitiously the world we know.You could not come and yet you go.

But there is nothing now to marYour clear refusal of our world.Not in our memories can we mouldYou or distort your character.Then all our consolation isThat grief can be as pure as this.

From For The FallenLawrence Binyon

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.At the going down of the sun and in the morningWe will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;They sit no more at familiar tables of home;They have no lot in our labor of the day-time;They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,To the innermost heart of their own land they are knownAs the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,To the end, to the end they remain.

For Whom The Bell TollsJohn Donne

The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from thatminute that this occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God.

Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? But who takes off his eye from acomet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon anyoccasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himselfout of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of themain. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if apromontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’sdeath diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send toknow for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

From A Grief ObservedC.S. Lewis

Sorrow… turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history, andif I don't stop writing that history at some quite arbitrary point, there’s no reason why Ishould never stop. There is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like along valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. As I’vealready noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; youare presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behindmiles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn’t a circular trench. But it isn’t.There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn't repeat.

Funeral BluesW. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling 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 wood;For nothing now can ever come to any good.

From The Garden Of ProserpineAlgernon Charles Swinburne

From too much love of living,From hope and fear set free,We thank with brief thanksgivingWhatever gods may beThat no life lives for ever;That dead men rise up never;That even the weariest riverWinds somewhere safe to sea.

The Gate Of The YearMinnie Louise Haskins

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’And he replied, ‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shallbe to you better than light and safer than a known way!’

So I went forth and finding the Hand of GodTrod gladly into the nightHe led me towards the hillsAnd the breaking of day in the lone east.

So heart be still!What need our human life to knowIf God hath comprehension?In all the dizzy strife of thingsBoth high and low,God hideth his intention.

Gestalt At SixtyMay Sarton

I am not ready to die,But I am learning to trust deathAs I have trusted life.I am movingToward a new freedomBorn of detachmentAnd a sweeter grace –Learning to let go.

I am not ready to die,But as I approach deathI turn my face toward the sea.I shall go where tides replace time,Where my world will open to a far horizon.

Over the floating, never-still flux and change,I shall go with the changes,I shall look far out over golden grassesAnd blue waters ....There are no farewells.

Give Sorrow WordsWilliam Shakespeare

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speakWhispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.

God Be In My HeadAnonymous

God be in my head, and in my understanding;God be in my eyes, and in my looking;God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;God be in my heart, and in my thinking;God be at my end, and at my departing.

Good-NightMary Gilmore

Good-night!... my darling sleeps so soundShe cannot hear me where she lies;White lilies watch the closed eyes,Red roses guard the folded hands.

Good-night! O woman who once layUpon my breast, so still, so sweetThat all my pulses, throbbing, beatAnd flamed – I cannot touch you now.

Good-night, my own! God knows we lovedSo well, that all things else seemed slight –We part forever in the night,We two poor souls who loved so well.

Good Night! Good Night!Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have saidBeneath this roof at midnight, in the daysThat are no more, and shall no more return.Thou hast but taken up thy lamp and gone to bed;I stay a little longer, as one staysTo cover up the embers that still burn.

A GravestoneWilliam Allingham

Far from the churchyard dig his grave,On some green mound beside the wave;To westward, sea and sky alone,And sunsets. Put a mossy stone,With mortal name and date, a harpAnd bunch of wild flowers, carven sharp;Then leave it free to winds that blow,And patient mosses creeping; slow,And wandering wings, and footsteps rareOf human creature pausing there.

The Green DoorJohn Holmes

But I have lived too much to guess of dyingThat death’s a garden, or to rhyme its fears,And lived so long – a twelvemonth in a minute –I think time goes by heartbeats, not by years.

Here in my heart I hold such strong abundance,I do not care what lies beyond that door.Life is enough. There is always music,Always more love, more fun, and always more.

And if the green door opens on tomorrow,And every friend still answers to his name,A little death makes eloquent the daylight:It will be glory that the world’s the same.

And we have all been dead, who now are living!Speak out the secret thing we’re certain of:We’re back, we’ve all come back, we’ve all been givenA longer time to look, and touch, and love.

And this beloved face of daily livingLights in a thousand different ways for me,With brave and starry reasons for not dying:There is too much to think about, and see…A long music, and I ask for nothing moreThis side the narrow portal, death’s green door,Only to cry with mind and heart and tongueThat death at any age is dying young.

From GriefGeorge Herbert

O who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs,Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds and rain;My grief hath need of all the watery thingsThat nature hath produced: let every veinSuck up a river to supply mine eyes,My weary weeping eyes, too dry for me,Unless they get new conduits, new supplies,To bear them out, and with my state agree.

A Grief AgoMichael Shepherd

‘There is no griefwhich time does not lessenor soften’ –so said Cicero, a man so often right;a Stoic, those for whomall life presents a lessonto be learned from,and then, to move on from…But I wonder about all this:is grief ever lessened or softened?Is it not, perhaps, overlaidin our so various ways?For some, grief framed and falsifiedto ease that grief;For some, like hyacinths and crocus bulbs,left in a dark cupboard in the autumn of our griefto respond to time, andbecome at lastthemselves?gently, gently, the covers pulledover the loving bed,the true, the pure, the lovely painful grief,the memory deep cherished,gently, gently, foldedinto the cupboards of the heartthere to be known, without the door disturbeduntil the time – ‘a grief ago’ as Dylan wrote –the cupboard opened only for love’s sakewithout grief...:those carefully folded memoriesbrought out and lovedand lived a while...not grief, not grief... butthe pure memory of griefand behold,life.

Grief Is InconsolableCharles H. Brent

Grief is inconsolable in that the gap made can never be filled with anyone els e than thebeloved. I stand near enough to the grave to know the cruelty of the gulf that separates,but the realization does not weaken faith.

High FlightJohn Gillespie Magee

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of EarthAnd danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirthOf sun-split clouds – and done a hundred thingsYou have not dreamed of; wheeled and soared and swungHigh in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flungMy eager craft through footless halls of air;Up, up the long, delirious, burning blueI’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,Where never lark nor even eagle flew –And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trodThe high untrespassed sanctity of space,Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

His Journey’s Just BegunEllen Brenneman

Don’t think of him as gone away –His journey’s just begunLife holds so many facetsThis earth is only one.

Just think of him as restingFrom the sorrows and the tearsIn a place of warmth and comfortWhere there are no days and years.

Think how he must be wishingThat we could know todayHow nothing but our sadnessCan really pass away.

And think of him as livingIn the hearts of those he touched...For nothing loved is ever lost –And he was loved so much.

Hold Onto What Is GoodPueblo verse

Hold onto what is goodeven if it is a handful of earth.

Hold onto what you believeeven if it is a tree which stands by itself.

Hold onto what you must doeven if it is a long way from here.

Hold onto lifeeven when it is easier letting go.

Hold onto my handeven when I have gone away from you.

In the snow and wind.H. D. - Hilda Doolittle

The snow is melted,The snow is gone,And you are flown:Like a bird out of our hand,Like a light out of our heart,You are gone.

I Dreamed Death Came The Other NightRichard Burt

I dreamed death came the other night, and heaven’s gate swung wide.An angel with a halo bright ushered me inside.And there, to my astonishment, were folks that I had labeledAs quite unfit, of little worth, and spiritually disabled.Hot words of anger sprang to my lips, but never were set free –For from their looks of astonishment, no one expected me!

If All The SkiesHenry van Dyke

If all the skies were sunshine,Our faces would be fainTo feel once more upon themThe cooling splash of rain.

If all the world were music,Our hearts would often longFor one sweet strain of silence.To break the endless song.

If life were always merry,Our souls would seek relief,And rest from weary laughterIn the quiet arms of grief.

If Death Is KindSara Teasdale

Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning,We will come back to earth some fragrant night,And take these lanes to find the sea, and bendingBreathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.

We will come down at night to these resounding beachesAnd the long gentle thunder of the sea,Here for a single hour in the wide starlightWe shall be happy, for the dead are free.

If I Should Go Before The Rest Of YouJoyce Grenfell

If I should go before the rest of you,Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone.Nor when I’m gone speak in a Sunday voice,But be the usual selves that I have known.

Weep if you must,Parting is hell,But life goes on,So sing as well.

If We Could Only KnowPhillips Brooks

We are so apt to see only what souls go from. When our friend dies we think of all thewarm delights of life, all the sweet friendships, all the interesting occupations, all thesplendor of the sunlight… If we could only know the presence of God into which ourfriend enters on the other side, the higher standards, the larger fellowship with all hisrace, and the new assurance of personal immortality in God; if we could know all this,how our poor comfortless effort of comfort when our friends depart, our feeble rakingover the ashes of memory, our desperate struggles to think that the inevitable must beall right; how this would all give way to something almost like a burst of triumph, as thesoul we loved went forth to such vast enlargement, to such glorious consummation of itslife!

From The IliadHomer

Like the leaves in their generations,Such is the race of men.For the wind casts the leaves from their branchesTo earthward, and againOthers the budding greenwood each springtideBeings to birth,So do men’s generations spring up and fadeFrom earth.

I Look To Thee In Every NeedSamuel Longfellow

I look to Thee in every need, and never look in vain;I feel Thy strong and tender love, and all is well again.The thought of Thee is mightier far than sin and pain and sorrow are.

Discouraged in the work of life, disheartened by its load,Shamed by its failures or its fears, I sink beside the road.But let me only think of Thee and then new heart springs up in me.

Thy calmness bends serene above, my restlessness to still;Around me flows Thy quickening life, to nerve my faltering will.Thy presence fills my solitude, Thy providence turns all to good.

Enfolded deep in Thy dear love, held in Thy law, I stand;Thy hand in all things I behold, and all things in Thy hand.Thou leadest me by unsought ways, and turn my mourning into praise.

I’m Here For A Short Visit OnlyNoel Coward

I’m here for a short visit only,And I’d rather be loved than hated.Eternity may be lonelyWhen my body’s disintegrated;And that which is loosely termed my soulGoes whizzing off through the infiniteBy means of some vague remote control.I’d like to think I was missed a bit.

I’m Thinking That Soon, Maybe, We’ll MeetMichael Shepherd

I’m thinking, Dad, that soon, maybe, we’ll meet;At least, that’s how it seems from what I hear;The info’s not at all clear on this point:Like, where exactly; and what will I wear,And shall I bring you something; if so, what?I’m not too easy, Dad, about all this:Like, am I sure to find you in that lot?And, will we treat each other like we did,Or as we should now (God knows how you’ll be…)?And, will we need to talk about past pain?(‘cos that’s what’s really, really bugging me…);Or can we wipe the slate clean, start again?Dad – were you proud of me? You never said…Dad – love you; are things better, now you’re dead?

In Deepest YinJeremy Naydler

In deepest yin, the world has slid,slowed down to sleep within itself.And what was strong, and what was firm,is weak and limp, its colour seeped,its form withdrawn, its residuereturning to the elements.As ember buried under ash,in densest dark the fire is hidfor which the out-spent soul does yearn.So to the dark it must give in,as does the plant, surrenderingsap, surge and seed back to the earth.Then soul, like plant, may round time’s curveand strike from hidden fire.... rebirth.

In Memory Of YouKirsti A. Dyer

I find an old photographand see your smile.As I feel your presence anew,I am filled with warmthand my heart remembers love.

I read an old cardsent many years agoduring a time of turmoil and confusion.The soothing words written thenstill caress my spiritand bring me peace.

I remember who you used to bethe laughter we sharedand wonder what you have become.Where are you now,where did you go,when the body is left behindand the spirit is released to fly?

Perhaps you are the morning birdsinging joyfully at sunrise,or the butterfly that dancesso carelessly on the breezeor the rainbow of colorsthat brightens a stormy skyor the fingers of afternoon mistdelicately reaching over the mountainsor the final few rays of the setting sunlighting up the skiesedging the clouds with a magical glow.

I miss your beingbut I feel your presence,in whatever form you choose to take,however you now choose to be.

Your spirit has become for mea guardian angel on highguiding, advising, and watching over me.

I remember you.You are with meand I am not afraid.

In SpringGeorge C. Whitney

If I should die (and die I must) please let it be in springWhen I, and life up-budding, shall be oneAnd green and lovely things shall blend with all I wasAnd all I hope to be.

The chemistryOf miracle within the heart of love and life abundantShall be mine, and I shall pluck the star-dust and shall knowThe mystery within the bladeAnd sing the wind’s song in the softness of the flowered glade.

April is the time for parting, not because all nature’s tearsPresage the blooming time of MayBut joyous should be death and its adventureAs the night gives way to the day.

In The Midst Of LifeBook Of Common Prayer

In the midst of life we are in death.

Into The Darkness We Lay You DownAuthor unknown

Into the darkness and warmth of the earthWe lay you down.

Into the sadness and smiles of our memoriesWe lay you down.

Into the cycle of living and dying and rising againWe lay you down.

May you rest in peace, in fulfilment, in lovingMay you run straight home into God’s embrace.

Into the freedom of wind and sunshineWe let you go.

Into the dance of the stars and the planetsWe let you go.

Into the wind’s breath and the hands of the star makerWe let you go.

We love you, we miss you, we want you to be happyGo safely, go dancing, go running home.

It Is Not Growing Like A TreeBen Jonson

It is not growing like a treeIn bulk, doth make man better be;Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,To fall a log, at last, dry, bald, and sere:A lily of a dayIs fairer far in May,Although it fall, and die that night;It was the plant and flower of light.In small proportions we just beauties see:And in short measures life may perfect be.

I Vow To Thee My CountryCecil Spring-Rice

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago,Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto the HillsPsalm

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,From whence cometh my help.My help cometh even from the Lord:Who hath made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved:And he that keepeth thee will not slumber.Behold, he that keepeth IsraelShall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord himself 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 preserve thee from all evil:He shall preserve thy soul.The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in,From this time forth, and even for evermore.

I Will Not Die An Unlived LifeDawna Markova

I will not die an unlived lifeI will not live in fearOf falling or catching fire.I choose to inhabit my days,To allow my living to open meMaking me less afraid,More accessibleTo loosen my heartUntil it becomes a wing,A torch, a promise.I choose to risk my significance.To live so that which came to me as seedGoes to the next as blossomAnd that which came to me as blossomGoes on as fruit.

Last LinesAnne Brontë

I hoped that with the brave and strong,My portioned task might lie;To toil amid the busy throng,With purpose pure and high.

But God has fixed another part,And He has fixed it well;I said so with my bleeding heart,When first the anguish fell.

A dreadful darkness closes inOn my bewildered mind;Oh, let me suffer and not sin,Be tortured, yet resigned.

Shall I with joy thy blessings shareAnd not endure their loss?Or hope the martyr’s crown to wearAnd cast away the cross?

Thou, God, hast taken our delight,Our treasured hope away;Thou bidst us now weep through the nightAnd sorrow through the day.

These weary hours will not be lost,These days of misery,These nights of darkness, anguish-tost,Can I but turn to Thee.

Weak and weary though I lie,Crushed with sorrow, worn with pain,I may lift to Heaven mine eye,And strive to labor not in vain;

That inward strife against the sinsThat ever wait on sufferingTo strike whatever first begins –Each ill that would corruption bring;

That secret labour to sustainWith humble patience every blow;To gather fortitude from pain,And hope and holiness from woe.

Thus let me serve Thee from my heart,

Whate’er may be my written fate:Whether thus early to depart,Or yet a while to wait.

If Thou shouldst bring me back to life,More humbled I should be;More wise, more strengthened for the strife,More apt to lean on Thee.

Should death be standing at the gate,Thus should I keep my vow;But, Lord! whatever be my fate,Oh, let me serve Thee now!

Last WaveDawn MacGregor-Bromfield

I know you love meBut I’ve gone whereRose petals are my pillow.

I know you cared for me as I got weakI’ve gone where I can run again.

I know you hoped my pain would easeSo I’ve gone where I can smile again.

As I wave goodbye for the last time...I leave with youMy words of encouragement...My memories.

I leave with youMy dreamsMy warmth.

Smile with me...As I go home to rest,

I’m tired.

The Last YearRobert Friend

This is the last year.

There will be no other,but heartless natureseemingly relents.

Never has a winter sunspilled so much light,never have so many flowersdared such early bloom.

The air is brilliant, sharp.Never have I takensuch long, long breaths.

Lead, Kindly LightJohn Henry Newman

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom,Lead Thou me on!The night is dark, and I am far from home,Lead Thou me on!Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to seeThe distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that ThouShouldst lead me on.I loved to choose and see my path, but nowLead Thou me on!I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it stillWill lead me on,O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, tillThe night is gone;And with the morn those angel faces smileWhich I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead UsJames Edmeston

Lead us, heavenly Father, lead usO’er the world’s tempestuous sea;Guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us,For we have no help but thee;Yet possessing every blessing,If our God our Father be.

Savior, breathe forgiveness o’er us,All our weakness thou dost know;Thou didst tread this earth before us,Thou didst feel its keenest woe;Lone and dreary, faint and weary,Through the desert Thou didst go.

Spirit of our God, descending,Fill our hearts with heavenly joy;Love with every passion blending,Pleasure that can never cloy;Thus provided, pardoned, guided,Nothing can our peace destroy.

Let Go When The Time ComesMichael McGee

When we can live fully in the present, then and only then can we be fully present to ourdying and our death. And then and only then will we find the deeper meaning in lifeitself.

This then is how we can begin to face death:

in seeking our courage by becoming more aware of our fears.

by loving what is mortal, and, when the time comes to let it go.

and by being present and mindful of every moment of life as well as our impendingdeath.

Let Me Die, WorkingSamuel Hall Young

Let me die, working.Still tackling plans unfinished, tasks undone!Clean to its end, swift may my race be run.No laggard steps, no faltering, no shirking;Let me die, working!

Let me die, thinking.Let me fare forth still with an open mind,Fresh secrets to unfold, new truths to find,My soul undimmed, alert, no question blinking;Let me die, thinking!

Let me die, laughing.No sighing o’er past sins; they are forgiven.Spilled on this earth are all the joys of Heaven;The Wine of life, the cup of mirth quaffing.Let me die, laughing!

Let Us Endeavor To LiveMark Twain

Let us endeavor to live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry.

Let Us Go Hand In HandWilliam Morris

I’m going your way, so let us go hand in hand. You help me and I’ll help you. We shallnot be here for very long, for soon death, the kind old nurse, will come back and rock usall to sleep. Let us help one another while we may.

Let Us Lead Worthy LivesLord Grey

I know very well there is no escape from grief. We cannot love very much withoutsuffering much, and the very pain of our suffering is an evidence of the strength of ourlove, so that we cannot ever wish grief to be less than it is and must be. The best I canwish for you is that you may have courage and strength; you will yourself know where toseek and find it. Some of you will get it, I hope, from the pleasure you have had inEdward’s life, and of his fine example. We who are left have to make our lives continueto be worthy of those from whom we are separated.

Let Us Offer Them BackJohn B. Coburn

All love that binds and holds and coerces and refuses to let go destroys and consumes.A parent must set his child free; a couple must be free to choose to love each otherevery day till death parts them. When death comes, let them go.

It might be helpful to think of this as an offering. They have been given to us – free gifts:love, husbands, wives, children, colleagues, fellow workers, members of a common life.As they have been given to us, let us offer them back… If we are Christians we offerthem back to God…

Each successive bereavement can bring greater gentleness, less passion to possessthings or prestige or power, an abiding courage, a grounding in life unseen and eternalthat cannot be shaken, a willingness not to have your own way all the time, a sense…that pain somehow brings greater power than even knowledge, a realization that thedeepest satisfactions are in a peace and joy that the world can neither give nor takeaway, that all life finally is grace.

Life And DeathJ. Donald Johnston

In the presence of Lifewe say NOto Death.

In the presence of Deathwe say YESto Life.

Life Does Not Take Death SeriouslyRabindranath Tagore

Life as a whole never takes death seriously. It laughs, dances and plays, it builds,hoards and loves in death’s face. Only when we detach one individual death do we seeits blankness and become dismayed. We lose sight of the wholeness of a life of whichdeath is a part. It is like looking at a piece of cloth through a microscope. It appears likea net: we gaze at the big holes and shiver in imagination. But the truth is, death is notthe ultimate reality. It looks black as the sky looks blue; but it does not blackenexistence, just as the sky does not leave its stain upon the wings of a bird.

Life Is Too BriefW. M. Vories

Life is too briefBetween the budding and the falling leaf,Between the seed time and the golden sheaf,For hate and spite.

We have no time for malice and for greed;Therefore, with love make beautiful the deed;Fast speeds the night.

Life Must Go OnNavaho Prayer

Grieve for me, for I would grieve for you.Then brush away the sorrow and the tearsLife is not over, but begins anew,with courage you must greet the coming years.To live forever in the past is wrong;can only cause you misery and pain.Dwell not on memories overlong,with others you must share and care again.Reach out and comfort those who comfort you;recall the years, but only for a while.Nurse not your loneliness; but live again.Forget not. Remember with a smile.

The Life That I HaveLeo Marks

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 haveIs 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 grassWill be yours and yours and yours.

Life! We Have Been Long TogetherAnna Laetitia Barbauld

Life! We have been long together,Through pleasant and through cloudy weather,’Tis hard to part when friends are dear,Perhaps ’twill cost a sigh, a tear;Then steal away; give little warning;Choose thine own time.

Say not, ‘Good Night!’ but in some brighter clime,Bid me, ‘Good Morning!’

Like Dew DropsSenryu Karai,

Like dew dropson a lotus leaf,I vanish.

A Little Bit Of Me DiesDonald H. Wheat

Each time a person I have treasured dies, a little bit of me dies as well. I wonder if thisisn’t nature’s way of easing my own death. There will be so little to give up.

A Little Piece Of LoisCynthia B. Johnson

awash in the macro visioning of the art exhibitI grounded myself in a disciplined considerationof hardware, fasteners, relative merits of foam coreversus pastel board, framed versus frameless

spread out in the back counter employee-only area,primary focus of the clerk/artist/member of a mutual admiration societyanother customer needed her assistance, apologizedas he passed by me in the narrow aisle, spoke

of his need to return to the hospital to be with his dying motherI murmured sympathy and said I, too, was waiting for hospital newsfrom Colorado where my daughter-in-law and sonthis very hour were in the delivery room to meet their twins

my news from the happier edge of the range of human existence, I notedau contraire, he replied in the 60s, they said deathwas the greatest adventure of them all, the reasonit was saved for last, not to be feared but awaited

we moved apart after docking for twenty seconds in our cosmic orbitshe said his mother was a wonderful person, he’d been luckyto have the parents he had, perhaps my new grandchildrenwould be so lucky as to get a little piece of Lois

Living In The Heart’s MemoryMichael Shepherd

A gentle touch upon the forearmwith a hand, gloved or warm with life,

outside the church door; orturning away from the open grave; orby that concrete placewhere they lay the floral tributesby the cemetery chapel;or later, as you hand the food around;

a gentle touch upon the forearmor a hand sought for to squeeze and hold; orman to man, they favour a shoulder briefly gripped,as if that’s the pressure pointwhere empathetic camaraderie should be applied;

the single sentence of consolation,sometimes so well rehearsed, it comes out awkwardly –‘she’ll be much missed…’‘you have so many memories…’‘he’ll always be there in our hearts…’‘if there’s anything…’

they’ve been through this, themselves,or fear the time they shall –

…‘words must be said,but yet there are no words for this;accept then, these few wordsin lieu of that deep silencewhich is itself in lieu of words…’

* * *measured, immutable, as preciseas any equation of the calculated world,the heart’s memories:every moment that our heart, in many years,has opened to them, these the heart has stored.

We know the mind can span the imagined world –from travel brochures to the thought of heaven;yet we forget that, greater still, the heart is vast –there’s all the room for them to live on, there,sustained by every moment of love freely given; forthe whole creation is one single act of love.

The Lord Is My ShepherdPsalm

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:he leadeth me beside the still waters.He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thouart with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Lord Of All HopefulnessJan Struther

Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,Whose trust, ever childlike, no cares could destroy,Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray,Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.

Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith,Whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe,Be there at our labors, and give us, we pray,Your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day.

Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace,Your hands swift to welcome, your arms to embrace,Be there at our homing, and give us, we pray,Your love in our hearts, Lord, at the eve of the day.

Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm,Whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm,Be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray,Your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day.

LossJohn Banister Tabb

For one extinguished lightOf Love, all heaven is night;For one frail flower the less,The world a wilderness.

Love Is Stronger Than FearMark DeWolfe

Know that the love which blooms inside you is stronger than fear, for people who lovefind strength they don’t know they had. Know that the love inside y ou is stronger thanillness, for people who love hang in when physical health is gone. And know that love isindeed stronger than death, for people who love are like stones tossed into a pool. Thecircles of love radiate out and echo back long after the stone has come to rest at thebottom.

Make Me Brave For LifeAmenAuthor unknown

God, make me brave for life: oh, braver than this.Let me straighten after pain, as a tree straightens after the rain,Shining and lovely again.

God, make me brave for life; much braver than this.As the blown grass lifts, let me riseFrom sorrow with quiet eyes,Knowing Thy way is wise.

God, make me brave, life bringsSuch blinding things.

Help me to keep my sight;Help me to see arightThat out of dark comes light.

May The Lord Be Close To YouThe Prayer Trust

May the Lord be close to you in this time of sorrow.

May the Lord gently help you through each and every day, especially the ones thatseem hardest and longest.

May the Lord comfort you to ease your sadness, and to give you strength for the daysahead.

May the Lord give you hope and as you feel the pain of loss, may his promise of eternallife console your heart.

Amen

May The Roads Rise Up To Meet YouTraditional Irish blessing

May the roads rise up to meet you,May the wind be always at your back,May the sun shine warm upon your face,May the rains fall soft upon your fieldsAnd until we meet againMay God hold you in the palm of his hand.

From Meditations Of The HeartHoward Thurman

I share with you the agony of your grief,The anguish of your heart finds echo in my own.I know I cannot enter all you feelNor bear with you the burden of your pain;

I can but offer what my love does give:The strength of caring,The warmth of one who seeks to understandThe silent storm-swept barrenness of so great a loss.

This I do in quiet ways,That on your lonely pathYou may not walk alone.

The Miracle Of TransformationRufus Jones

I never go to a funeral without thinking of this miracle of transformation which br ings thebird out of the egg, the flower out of the seed, the dragon-fly out of its water lava. In hisown mysterious way God has emptied the nest by the hatching method, and all that wasexcellent, lovable and permanent in the one we loved has found itself in the realm forwhich it was fitted. The body is only the empty shell, the shattered seed, the old husk,which the forces of nature will slowly turn back again into its original elements, to useover again for its myriad processes of building.

Miss Me – But Let Me GoAuthor unknown

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 too long,And not with your head bowed low;Remember the love that we once shared,Miss me – but let me go.

For this is a journey we all must take,And each must go alone;It’s all a part of life’s plan,A step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick of heart,Go to the friends we know,And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds;Miss me – but let me go.

Mother Earth, Father SkyHindu Ascetic

Oh Mother Earth, Father Sky,Brother Wind, Friend Light, Sweetheart Water,Here take my last salutation with folded hands!For today I am melting away into the SupremeBecause my heart became pure,And all delusion vanished,Through the power of your good company.

MournersTed Koosier

After the funeral, the mourners gatherunder the rustling churchyard maplesand talk softly, like clusters of leaves.White shirt cuffs and collars flash in the shade;highlights on deep green water.

They came this afternoon to say goodbye,but now they keep saying hello and hello,peering into each other’s faces,slow to let go of each other’s hands.

Music Of SorrowBishop Thorold

It is often in sorrow that our lives are taught their sweetest songs. There are human livesthat never in the calm of quiet days yield the music that is in them. It is only when thebreezes of care and trouble sweep over them that they give out soft murmurings ofsong.

My Coming, My GoingKozan Ichikyo

Empty-handed I entered the worldBarefoot I leave it.My coming, my goingTwo simple happeningsThat got entangled.

NatureHenry Wadsworth Longfellow

As a fond mother, when the day is o’er,Leads by the hand her little child to bed,Half willing, half reluctant to be led,And leave his broken playthings on the floor,Still gazing at them through the open door,Nor wholly reassured and comfortedBy promises of others in their stead,Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;

So nature deals with us, and takes awayOur playthings one by one, and by the handLeads us to rest so gently, that we goScarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,Being too full of sleep to understandHow far the unknown transcends the what we know.

Nearer, My God, To TheeSarah Flower Adams

Nearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee!E’en though it be a crossThat raiseth me,Still all my song shall be,‘Nearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee!’

Though, like the wanderer,The sun gone down,Darkness be over me,My rest a stone,Yet in my dreams I’d beNearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee!

There let the way appear,Steps unto heaven;All that Thou sendest me,In mercy given:Angels to beckon meNearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee! Then, with my waking thoughtsBright with Thy praise,Out of my stony griefsBethel I’ll raise;So by my woes to beNearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee!

Or, if on joyful wingCleaving the sky,Sun, moon, and stars forgot,Upwards I fly,Still all my song shall be,‘Nearer, my God, to Thee,Nearer to Thee!’

There in my Father’s home,Safe and at rest,There in my Savior’s love,Perfectly blest;Age after age to be,Nearer, my God, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee!

Never Did I Want So Much For YouMichael Shepherd

Never did I want so much for youAs when I sat there in the downstairs roomWhere you’d just died, so restlessly askewWith thrashing limbs too angled for a tomb;Not with the peace I thought you must deserve,Not with the words of love and tender care,Not with last precious memories to preserve,Not with a gentle breath, but gasping air;Only at peace when after all event,Only at rest when rest was past your ken,Only to touch, when you could not preventAnd push aside my hands; and only then…And then, I begged with all my heart of GodTo judge you as I loved you: wholly good.

A New Quietness Fills our HeartsJames Gordon Gilkey

Why do we claim that the world beyond death is a world without terrors? Because webelieve that a God of love, unfailing and all-including love, planned this vast scheme ofthings. We cannot believe that He would frighten or hurt any of his children, either in lifeor after death. When terrifying things happen here on earth they are (we believe) thework of something or someone other than our Father-in-Heaven. And the life afterdeath? We believe that it is through a quiet door the dead pass, that it is in a friendlyworld they find themselves, that there they retain their identity and their love for us. Atthat point our speculations stop… but meantime our fear has faded. In place of dread anew quietness fills our hearts. We are confident that our dead are safe, and that aroundthem as around us is a never-failing Divine Love.

From The NightHenry Vaughan

There is in God (some say)A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men hereSay it is late and dusky, because theySee not all clear;O for that night! where I in himMight live invisible and dim.

No Coward SoulEmily Brontë

No coward soul is mine,No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:I see Heaven’s glories shine,And Faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast,Almighty, ever-present Deity!Life – that in me has rest,As I – undying Life – have Power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creedsThat move men’s hearts: unutterably vain;Worthless as withered weeds,Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in oneHolding so fast by Thine infinity;So surely anchored onThe steadfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing loveThy spirit animates eternal years,Pervades and broods above,Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,And suns and universes ceased to be,And Thou wert left alone,Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,Nor atom that his might could render void:Thou – Thou art Being and Breath,And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

No Funeral GloomWilliam Allingham

No funeral gloom, my dears, when I am gone,Corpse-gazing, tears, black raiment, graveyard grimness.Think of me as withdrawn into the dimness,Yours still, you mine. Remember all the bestOf our past moments and forget the rest;And so to where I wait, come gently on.

Non Nobis Tantum NatiAuthor unknown

Though I am dead, grieve not with tears;Think not of death with sorrowing and fears;I am so near that every tear you shedTouches me, although you think me dead.

But when you laugh and sing in glad delight,Thy soul is lifted upwards to the height,And I, though dead, will share your joy in living.

No Single Thing AbidesLucretius

No single thing abides; but all things flow.Fragment to fragment clings – the things thus growUntil we know and name them. By degreesThey melt, and are no more the things we know.

Globed from the atoms falling slow or swiftI see the suns, I see the systems liftTheir forms; and even the systems and the sunsShall go back slowly to the eternal drift.

Thou too, oh earth – thine empires, lands, and seas –Least with thy stars, of all the galaxies,Globed from the drift, like these thou tooShalt go. Thou art going, hour by hour, like these.

Nothing abides. The seas in delicate hazeGo off; those mooned sands forsake their place;And where they are, shall other seas in turnMow with their scythes of whiteness other bays. The seeds that once were we take flight and fly,Winnowed to earth, or whirled along the sky,Not lost but disunited. Life lives on.It is the lives, the lives, the lives, that die.

Flakes of the water, on the waters cease!Soul of the body, melt and sleep like these.Atoms to atoms – weariness to rest –Ashes to ashes – hopes and fears to peace!

Not, How Did He Die, But How Did He Live?Author unknown

Not, how did he die, but how did he live?Not, what did he gain, but what did he give?

These are the units to measure the worthOf a man as a man, regardless of birth.Not what was his church, nor what was his creed?But had he befriended those really in need?

Was he ever ready, with word of good cheer,To bring back a smile, to banish a tear?Not what did the sketch in the newspaper say,But how many were sorry when he passed away?

Now Breathe Great Breaths Of HeavenJohn Davies

now breathegreat breaths of heavenmove wellfor pain has gonecry joyand singyour heart beats strong nowcherished little one

Often When The Heart Is Torn With SorrowHelen Keller

Often when the heart is torn with sorrow, spiritually we wander like a traveler lost in adeep wood. We grow frightened, lose all sense of direction, batter ourselves againsttrees and rocks in our attempt to find a path. All the while there is a path – a path of faith– that leads straight out of the dense tangle of our difficulties into the open road we areseeking. Let us not weep for those who have gone away when their lives were at fullbloom and beauty… Who shall say whether those who die in the splendor of their primeare not fortunate to have known no abatement, no dulling of the flame by ash, no slowfading of life’s perfect flower.

O God, Our Help In Ages PastIsaac Watts

O God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Our shelter from the stormy blast,And our eternal home!

Under the shadow of Thy throneThy saints have dwelt secure;Sufficient is Thine arm alone,And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,Or Earth received her frame,From everlasting Thou art God,To endless years the same.

Thy Word commands our flesh to dust:“Return, ye sons of men,”All nations rose from earth at first,And turn to earth again.

A thousand ages in Thy sightAre like an evening gone;Short as the watch that ends the nightBefore the rising sun.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,Bears all its sons away;They fly, forgotten, as a dreamDies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Be Thou our guard while troubles last,And our eternal home.

O God, Whose Ways Are HiddenFrom Common Worship: Pastoral Services, The Church Of England

O God, whose ways are hidden and thy words most wonderful, who makest nothing invain and lovest all that thou hast made: we give thee thanks for thy son/daughter(name), who was so dear to us, for his/her life and his/her love, and for the light andpeace and contentment which he/she brought to us. Comfort us thy servants, whosehearts are sore smitten and oppressed; and grant that we may so love and serve thee inthis life by love and service to others, that with him/her we may obtain the fullness of thypromises in the world to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O Help Us To Think WiselyA soldier’s prayer, from Winchester Cathedral

O help us to think wisely,To speak rightly,To resolve bravelyAnd to live purely.Support us in lifeAnd comfort us in death.

Old Age Flowing FreeEdith Wharton

Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old ageflowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

O May I Join The Choir InvisibleGeorge Eliot

Of those immortal dead who live againIn minds made better by their presence: liveIn pulses stirred to generosity,In deeds of daring rectitude, in scornFor miserable aims that end with self,In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,And with their mild persistence urge man’s searchTo vaster issues.

So to live is heaven:To make undying music in the world.

May I reachThat purest heaven, be to other soulsThe cup of strength in some great agony,Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,And in diffusion ever more intense!So shall I join the choir invisibleWhose music is the gladness of the world.

On DyingHenry Scott Holland

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to themorning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. Istand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud on the horizon,just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, ‘There she goes!’

Gone where?

Gone from my sight... that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and justas able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size isin me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, ‘There she goes!’ there areother eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: ‘Hereshe comes!’

This is how I see and understand death.

One Equal EternityJohn Donne

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enterinto that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling,but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, butone equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity; in the habitationsof thy glory and dominion, world without end.

One Man’s LifeT. S. Eliot

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing:that is enough for one man’s life.

One PersonAlphonse de Lamartine Sometimes only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.

Only A Little WhileOtomo no Yakamochi

We were together only a little while,And we believed our loveWould last a thousand years.

On PainKahlil Gibran

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as thestone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your painwould not seem less wondrous than your joy; and you would accept the seasons of yourheart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. Andyou would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

From On The Beach At NightWalt Whitman

Weep not, child,Weep not, my darling,With these kisses let me remove your tears;The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition:Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,They are immortal, all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall shine out again,The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.

On The Death Of A ChildThomas Aird

Like a dewdrop kissed off by the sun’s morning beams,A brief but a beauteous existence was given;Her soul seemed to come down to earth in a dream,And only to wake when ascending to heaven.

On The WorldFrancis Quarles

The world’s an Inn; and I her guest.I eat; I drink; I take my rest.My hostess, nature, does deny meNothing, wherewith she can supply me;Where, having stayed a while, I payHer lavish bills, and go my way.

O Still Small Voice Of CalmJohn Greenleaf Whittier

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,Till all our strivings cease;Take from our souls the strain and stress,And let our ordered lives confessThe beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the pulses of desireThy coolness and Thy balm;Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,O, still small voice of calm.From Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind

Our Revels Now Are EndedWilliam Shakespeare

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,As I foretold you, were all spirits, andAre melted into air, into thin air;And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolveAnd, like this insubstantial pageant faded,Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep.

Our Spirit Of ResistanceJean Nicolas Grou

The chief pang of most troubles is not so much the actual suffering, as our own spirit ofresistance to it.

Out Of Sorrow Comes UnderstandingStanton Coit

Out of their sorrow shall come understanding,Through suffering they are joined with all who live.

The Overcoming Of SufferingHelen Keller

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism,then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life.

The Parting GlassIrish Traditional Song

Oh all the time that e’er I spent,I spent it in good company.And any harm that e’er I’ve done,I trust it was to none but me.May those I’ve loved through all the yearsHave memories now they’ll e’er recall.So fill to me the parting glass,Good night, and joy be with you all.

Oh all the comrades that e’er I had,Are sorry for my going away.And all the loved ones that e’er I had,Would wish me one more day to stay.But since it falls unto my lotThat I should leave and you should not,I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly callGood night, and joy be with you all.

Of all good times that e’er we shared,I leave to you fond memory.And for all the friendship that e’er we had,I ask you to remember me.And when you sit and stories tell,I’ll be with you and help recall.So fill to me the parting glass,God bless, and joy be with you all.

A Parting GuestJames Whitcomb Riley

What delightful hosts are they –Life and Love!Lingeringly I turn away,This late hour, yet glad enoughThey have not withheld from meTheir high hospitality.So, with face lit with delightAnd all gratitude, I stayYet to press their hands and say,“Thanks. – So fine a time! Good night.”

A Perfect DayCarrie Jacobs Bond

When you come to the end of a perfect day,And you sit alone with your thought,While the chimes ring out with a carol gayFor the joy that the day has brought,Do you think what the end of a perfect dayCan mean to a tired heart,When the sun goes down with a flaming ray,And the dear friends have to part?

Well, this is the end of a perfect day,Near the end of a journey, too;But it leaves a thought that is big and strong,With a wish that is kind and true.For memory has painted this perfect dayWith colours that never fade,And we find, at the end of a perfect day,The soul of a friend we’ve made.

The Plants Who Teach Me All I KnowJeremy Naydler

The plants, who teach me all I know,have shown me it is part of lifeto be frozen and formlessin the dark below.

Dying, the thing that we most dread,each year they readily embrace:I bow to them, my friends the plants,who shed their forms with such good grace.

They give themselves to winter’s night,and then, when all’s completely lost,from dark and cold they rise againand strive, strive, strive for the light.

A Poem For My Friend Whose Mother Is Near DeathCynthia B. Johnson

I forwarded a poem to her by email this morning a poem about seeing and being remembering and moving forward through space and noticing each other’s oddities with an unblinking gaze

a short message of my own:Thinking of you, hoping you are feeling everything intensely but are not overwhelmed. Love, Cynthia

A few minutes earlier, I had left a message on her answering machine offering to come see her if I would be an interlude not a distraction.

How do we comfort one another when our mothers are dying slowlyor suddenly just up and die or even when we are still missing themafter they’ve been gone hundreds of calendar days?

Do we send two cups of ginger tea through the mail hope she can imagine hot tea andscones shared in a sunny room on a winter afternoon?

Shall I order a new sable paint brush from a catalogueto remind her there will be long hours in her studio laterafter what is happening has happened?

Shall I pass along decisions the committee made about all sorts of thingsor help her assume the whole world is on holdwhile this awful thing is happening no newspapers publishedbecause there is no news the economy flounderingbecause no one is buying anything politiciansopening their mouths without words coming outautumn on hold because scarlet might feel unseemlyand bare trees unbearable? Shall we leave her to her keeningthe howling way women do in the Middle East when their sons die?

When mothers die, a piece of us is dislodged forever Know, too,that we do survive companioned by memories in our bones

Praise Of A ManNorman MacCaig

He went through a company like a lamplighter –see the dull minds, one after another,begin to glow, to sheda beneficent light.

He went through a company likea knifegrinder – see the dull mindsscattering sparks of themselves,becoming razory, becoming useful.

He went through a companyas himself. But now he’s oneof the multitudinous company of the deadwhere there are no individuals.

The beneficent lights dimbut don’t vanish. The razory edgesdull, but still cut. He’s gone: but you can seehis tracks still, in the snow of the world.

Prayer For A Baby Who DiedVienna Cobb Anderson

She was so small, so beautiful,so full of hope and promise.What a blessing she has beento all of us who knew herthose few short months.

She taught us to love,to hope beyond expectation,to trust in that which is unseen.She drew us togetherin our anxiety,our moments of despairing and hopelessness,as well as in our joys and delight,and in her every breath.

Her life ended prematurely;just so had she been born.Too soon she died.We wept.The tears continue.We huggedand held one another.

The pain will always linger.Our hearts emptierfor her absenceand the unfulfilled dreamsshe promised.

But the love she broughtinto our lives will live forever.Thank you for giving her to us.Thank you for the blessingthat she will always be.

Thank you for the love wewould never have known,but for herand her brief days with us.Thank you for _____,our blessed child of grace.Amen.

Prayer For All OccasionsGordon B. McKeeman

For simple things that are not simple at all;For miracles of the common way . . . Sunrise . . . Sunset Seedtime . . . Harvest Hope . . . Joy . . . Ecstasy

For Grace that turns our intentions into deeds, our compassion into helpfulness our pain into mercy;For Providence that sustains and supports our needs;We lift our hearts in thankfulness and pray only to be more aware and thus more alive. Amen and amen.

Prayer For A Memorial ServiceKirk Loadman-Copeland

God of tears and the mysterious silence, God of suffering and God of hope, you havemade for everything a season. This is the season of our sorrow, of our grief, and wepray for grace to deal with what seems impossible to deal with. We remember thepromise made to those who mourn, yet too often it seems that comfort is beyond ourgrasp. We know that we cannot bear this burden alone. Should we pray for our grief tobe transformed, or is the purpose of our grief to transform us? Will our sorrow leadsomewhere unexpected? Might it lead us back to life if we follow it? Is it a reminder ofthe precious reality of life and love? The death of our loved one has created a vast,empty space within our lives, a great longing within our hearts. Can it ever be filled? Canit be healed by the sacred memory that makes our loved one forever a part of us?

So many questions, O God, and so much silence. May we be patient toward all that isunanswered in our hearts. And may others be patient with us, with our sorrow, ouranger, our fear and our questions. We are those who mourn. We seek the comfort thatwe can offer each other and the blessings of divine love and grace. Amen.

Prayer For PeaceSatish Kumar

Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth.Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust.Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace.Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.

Prayer For Those Who Have Committed SuicideVienna Cobb Anderson

Bless, O God of eternal life,all who have diedby their own hand.Grant them peacefrom their inner turmoiland the compassion of your love.

Comfort those who mourntheir loved ones.Strengthen them to face the questions of pain,the guilt and anger,the irreparable loss.

Help us to reach out in loveto others who prefer deathto the choices of lifeand to their families who grieve.Amen.

Prayer For Those Who MournBook Of Common Prayer

Almighty God, Father of all mercies and giver of all comfort: deal graciously, we praythee, with those who mourn, that casting every care on thee, they may know theconsolation of thy love, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

A Psalm Of LifeHenry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou art, to dust returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end or way;But to act, that each to-morrowFind us further than to-day.Art is long, and Time is fleeting,And our hearts, though stout and brave,Still, like muffled drums, are beatingFuneral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,In the bivouac of Life,Be not like dumb, driven cattle!Be a hero in the strife!Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!Let the dead Past bury its dead!Act – act in the living Present!Heart within, and God o’erhead!Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,With a heart for any fate;Still achieving, still pursuing,Learn to labor and to wait.

From RebeccaDaphne du Maurier

When people suffer a great shock, like death, or the loss of a limb, I believe they don’tfeel it just at first. If your hand is taken from you, you don’t know, for a few minutes, thatyour hand is gone. You go on feeling the fingers. You stretch and beat them on the air,one by one, and all the time there is nothing there, no hand, no fingers… I was shockedat my lack of emotion and this queer cold absence of distress. Little by little the feelingwill come back to me, I said to myself, little by little I shall understand.

RemarkableSue Pfaltz

It shouldn’t seem remarkableBut still it doesTo realize, as we walk at Summer’s end along the beach,The waves keep rolling in and ebbing outLong after we have turned and walked away.

Oh sure, the sands will shift and dunes will move.The waves will change in color, shape and size.But always they’ll be rolling in and out,The never ending sound will fall and rise.

Something like the same is in the woods.This trail will still be here beneath the oaksWith mist or sunlight beckoning aheadAnd birdsong laced between the shifting leavesWhen we have left the trail and gone away.

Well yes, they may come in with trucks and sawsAnd fell the tall tree down across the trail.But still its trace will probably remainBeside a sapling oak that’s sprouting there.

It shouldn’t seem remarkableBut it still doesTo know the sun most definitely will riseIn blue skies or behind some matted cloudsThe morning after the day that I have died.

Remember Me When I Am Gone AwayChristina Rossetti

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 dayYou tell me of our future that you planned.Only remember me; you understandIt will be too late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a whileAnd afterwards remember, do not grieve;For if the darkness and corruption leaveA vestige of the thoughts that once I had,Better by far you should forget and smileThan that you should remember and be sad.

RemembranceEmily Brontë

Cold in the earth – and the deep snow piled above thee!Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,Severed at last by Time’s all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hoverOver the mountains, on that northern shore;Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves coverThat noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild DecembersFrom those brown hills have melted into spring:Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembersAfter such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive if I forget thee,While the world’s tide is bearing me along:Other desires and other hopes beset me,Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lightened up my heaven,No other Star has ever shone for me:All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given,All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.

But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,And even Despair was powerless to destroy,Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy;

Then did I check the tears of useless passion,Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;Sternly denied its burning wish to hastenDown to that tomb already more than mine.

And even yet, I dare not let it languish,Dare not indulge in Memory’s rapturous pain;Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,How could I seek the empty world again?

RequiemRobert Louis Stevenson

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.

A Return To EternityJohn Muir

The rugged old Norsemen spoke of death as Heimgang: home-going. So the snow-flowers go home when they melt and flow to the sea, and the rock-ferns, after unrollingtheir fronds to the light and beautifying the rocks, roll them up close again in the autumnand blend with the soil. Myriads of rejoicing living creatures, daily, hourly, perhaps everymoment sink into death’s arms, dust to dust, spirit to spirit – waited on, watched over,noticed only by their Maker, each arriving at its own Heaven-dealt destiny. All the merrydwellers of the trees and streams, and the myriad swarms of the air, called into life bythe sunbeam of a summer morning, go home thru death, wings folded perhaps in thelast red rays of sunset of the day they were first tried. Trees towering in the sky, bravingstorms of centuries, flowers turning faces to the light for a single day or hour, havingenjoyed their share of life’s feast – all alike pass on and away under the law of deathand love. Yet all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, share Heaven’s blessingswith us, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity and returninto eternity.

Rise Up Slowly, AngelDiane Robertson

Rise up slowly, AngelFor I cannot let you goJust drift softly midst the facesIn sorry now bent low

Ease the searing anger,Born in harsh, unyielding truth.That Death could steal my loved one,From the glowing blush of youth.

Rise up slowly, AngelDo not leave me here aloneWhere the warmth of mortal essence,Lies replaced by cold hard stone

Speak to me in breezes,Whispered through the drying leavesAnd caress my brow with raindrops,Filtered by the sheltering trees.

Rise up slowly, AngelFor I cannot hear the songWhich calls you through the shadows,Into the light beyond.

Wrap me in a downy cape,Of sunshine, warm with love.And kiss a tear-stained mother’s faceWith moonlight from above.

Then wait for me at sunset,Beside the lily pond.And guide me safely homewardTo your world, which lies beyond.

Just spread your arms to take meIn reunion’s sweet embrace.And we shall soar, togetherTo a different time and place.

From Romeo and JulietWilliam Shakespeare

When he shall die,Take him and cut him out in little stars,And he will make the face of heaven so fineThat all the world will be in love with nightAnd pay no worship to the garish sun.

Save Me, O GodPsalm

Save me, O God;for the waters are come ineven unto my soul.

I sink in deep mire,where there is no standing:I am come into deep waters,where the floods overflow me.

I am weary of my crying:my throat is dry:mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.

Deliver me out of the mire,and let me not sink:let me be delivered from them that hate me,and out of the deep waters.

Let not the water-flood overflow me,neither let the deep swallow me up,and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.

Hear me, O Lord;for thy loving-kindness is good:turn thee unto meaccording to the multitude of thy tender mercies.

Separated By The Thinnest of VeilsAbbé Henri de Tourville

We must think of the dead as alive and joyful and we must rejoice in their happiness,remembering that we are in close and constant communion with them, our life onlyseparated from theirs by the thinnest of veils. We must remember, too, that this does notseparate us either from God – our eternal joy, who more than makes up all that we lack– or from the companionship of those who are with God in infinite time and space. Let usbe brave and keep the eyes of our souls wide open to all these realities: let us seeclearly around us those things which others only care to see dimly.

From Set In StoneVictoria Safford

In a cemetery once, an old one in New England, I found a strangely soothing epitaph.The name of the deceased and her dates had been scoured away by wind and rain, butthere was a carving of a tree with roots and branches (a classic nineteenth-centurymotif) and among them the words, “She attended well and faithfully to a few worthythings.” At first this seemed to me a little meager, a little stingy on the part of hersurvivors, but I wrote it down and have thought about it since, and now I can’t imagine amore proud or satisfying legacy. Every day I stand in danger of being struck by lightningand having the obituary in the local paper say, for all the world to see, “She attendedfrantically and ineffectually to a great many unimportant, meaningless details.”

How do you want your obituary to read?

She Is GoneAnonymous

You can shed tears that she is goneor you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she’ll come backor you can open your eyes and see all she’s left.

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see heror you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterdayor you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her and only that she’s goneor you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your backor you can do what she’d want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

She Speaks Of DeathBarbara Pescan

Oblivion, she saidin a weary voice,is what is after death.There is nothing after deathbut nothingand that’s all right with me.

It made good scientific sense,nailed to the cathedral doorof her religious childhood.

And when her husband dieda few years lateroblivionpinned against eternitysagged in the middleand in its foldssweet disbelief surprised herand the hopeshe hadn’t seen the last of him yet.

Sixty-Eighth BirthdayJames Russell Lowell

As life runs on, the road grows strangeWith faces new, and near the endThe milestones into headstones change,’Neath every one a friend.

The Slow Wisdom Of GriefGeorgia Harkness

The grief that death brings is, of course, not all of one level. The death of an aged,helpless parent can be welcomed as a blessed release for the person whose work isfinished, with no lack of love or respect for the deceased. When a younger person isknown to be incurably ill in mind or body, one can mourn his passing without wanting his bondage to earth to be prolonged. Every death brings the sadness of separation tothose who love. But it is when death comes prematurely, or violently, or suddenly andwithout warning, that the shock of bereavement can be life’s bitterest experience.

How can one bear it? How pick up the threads of life to carry them forward? Again only afew simple suggestions will be offered.

First, one must accept the inevitable. One may be too stunned at first to believe it can betrue. Yet it is true. The person who was a warm, sweet, living presence is no longerhere, and will not be again except in memory. No fruitful reordering of life is possibleuntil this fact is accepted.

One must not expect all at once to adjust to it. It is part of ‘grief’s slow wisdom’ that onlytime can heal the poignancy of the hurt. To try to hurry the process is not so muchdisrespect toward the deceased as the creation of new inner conflicts in the living.

One must give expression without shame to his grief... if one feels moved to weep inprivate or in public, it is far better to do so than to keep it bottled up. Repression canwork serious havoc by driving the poison of sorrow inward.

The SoldierRupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:That there’s some corner of a foreign fieldThat is for ever England. There shall beIn that rich earth a richer dust concealed;A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,A body of England’s, breathing English air,Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,A pulse on the eternal mind, no lessGives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

So Many Different Lengths Of TimeBrian Patten

How long does a man live, after all?Is it a thousand days, or only one?One week, or a few centuries?How long does a man spend living or dyingand what do we mean when we say ‘gone forever’?

Adrift in such preoccupations, we seek clarification.We can go to the philosophersbut they will weary of our questions.We can go to the priests and rabbisbut they might be busy with administrations.

So, how long does a man live after all?And how much does he live while he lives?We fret and ask so many questions -then when it comes to usthe answer is so simple after all.

A man lives for as long as we carry him inside us,for as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams,for as long as we ourselves live,holding memories in common, a man lives.

His lover will carry his man’s scent, his touch:his children will carry the weight of his love.One friend will carry his arguments,another will hum his favourite tunes,another will still share his terrors.

And the days will pass with baffled faces,then the weeks, then the months,then there will be a day when no question is asked,and the knots of grief will loosen in the stomachand the puffed faces will calm.

And on that day he will not have ceasedbut will have ceased to be separated by death.How long does a man live, after all?A man lives so many different lengths of time.

Some Things Will Never ChangeThomas Wolfe

Some things will never change. Some things will always be the same. Lean down yourear upon the earth, and listen.

The voice of forest water in the night, a woman’s laughter in the dark, the clean, hardrattle of naked gravel, the cricketing stitch of midday in hot meadows, the delicate web ofchildren’s voices in bright air – these things will never change.

The glitter of sunlight on roughened water, the glory of the stars, the innocence ofmorning, the smell of the sea in harbors, the feathery blur and smoky buddings of youngboughs, and something there that comes and goes and never can be captured, thethorn of spring, the sharp and tongueless cry – these things will always be the same.

All things belonging to the earth will never change – the leaf, the blade, the flower, thewind that cries and sleeps and wakes again, the trees whose stiff arms clash andtremble in the dark, and the dust of lovers long since buried in the earth – all thingsproceeding from the earth to seasons, all things that lapse and change and come againupon the earth – these things will always be the same, for they come up from the earththat never changes, they go back into the earth that lasts forever. Only the earthendures, but it endures forever.

The tarantula, the adder, and the asp will also never change. Pain and death will alwaysbe the same. But under the pavements trembling like a pulse, under the buildingstrembling like a cry, under the waste of time, under the hoof of the beast above thebroken bones of cities, there will be something growing like a flower, something burstingfrom the earth again, forever deathless, faithful, coming into life again like April.

A Song Of LivingAmelia Josephine Burr

Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.I have sent up my gladness on wings, to be lost in the blue of the sky.I have run and leaped with the rain, I have taken the wind to my breast.My cheek like a drowsy child to the face of the earth I have pressed.Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

I have kissed young Love on the lips, I have heard his song to the end.I have struck my hand like a seal in the loyal hand of a friend.I have known the peace of heaven, the comfort of work done well.I have longed for death in the darkness and risen alive out of hell.Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

I give a share of my soul to the world, when and where my course is run.I know that another shall finish the task I must surely leave undone.I know that no flower, no flint was in vain on the path I trod.As one looks on a face through a window, through life I have looked on God.Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

Song Of The RiverWilliam R. Hearst

The snow melts on the mountainAnd the water runs down to the spring,And the spring in a turbulent fountain,With a song of youth to sing,Runs down to the riotous river,And the river flows on to the sea,And the water againGoes back in rainTo the hills where it used to be.

And I wonder if Life’s deep mysteryIsn’t much like the rain and the snowReturning through all eternityTo the places it used to know.For life was born on the lofty heightsAnd flows in a laughing streamTo the river belowWhose onward flowEnds in a peaceful dream.

And so at last,When our life has passedAnd the river has run its course,It again goes back,O’er the selfsame track,To the mountain which was its source.

So why prize lifeOr why fear death,Or dread what is to be?The river ran its allotted spanTill it reached the silent sea.Then the water harked back to the mountaintopTo begin its course once more.

So we shall run the course begunTill we reach the silent shore,Then revisit earth in a pure rebirthFrom the heart of the virgin snow.So don’t ask why we live or die,Or wither, or when we go,Or wonder about the mysteriesThat only God may know.

Sonnet 30William Shakespeare

When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI summon up remembrance of things past,I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,And moan the expense of many a vanished sight.Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,And heavily from woe to woe tell o’erThe sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,Which I new pay as if not paid before.But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,All losses are restored and sorrows end.

From Sonnets From The PortugueseElizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.I love thee to the level of everyday’sMost quiet need, by sun and candlelight.I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.

Sonnet To Rupert BrookeJohn Gillespie Magee

We laid him in a cool and shadowed groveOne evening in the dreamy scent of thymeWhere leaves were green, and whispered high above –A grave as humble as it was sublime;

There, dreaming in the fading deeps of light –The hands that thrilled to touch a woman’s hair;Brown eyes, that loved the Day, and looked on Night,A soul that found at last its answered Prayer...

There daylight, as a dust, slips through the trees.And drifting, gilds the fern around his grave –Where even now, perhaps, the evening breeze

Steals shyly past the tomb of him who gaveNew sight to blinded eyes; who sometimes wept –A short time dearly loved; and after, – slept.

SorrowEdna St. Vincent Millay

Sorrow like a ceaseless rainBeats upon my heart.People twist and scream in pain,Dawn will find them still again;This has neither wax nor wane,Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town;I sit in my chair.All my thoughts are slow and brown:Standing up or sitting downLittle matters, or what gownOr what shoes I wear.

Sorrow Must Be Lived WithElizabeth Gray Vining

Sorrow cannot be fought and overcome; it cannot be evaded or escaped; it must belived with… we must learn how to shoulder the burden of it, to carry it so that it does notbreak our stride or sap the strength of those about us through their pity for our woe.Death of the young and vigorous when they still have much to experience and much togive, loss of the rare and precious person in midstream, is comparatively unusual ingood times, but in times of war it becomes tragically frequent. Somehow we must learnnot only to meet it with courage, which is comparatively easy, but to bear it with serenity,which is more difficult, being not a single act but a way of living.

‘Men help each other by their joy,’ Ruskin said, ‘not by their sorrow.’ Sorrow may be theplow and the harrow which dig the soil and crumble it fine, but it is the fresh-springingplant of joy that is directly of benefit to our fellows.

Stars, Songs, FacesCarl Sandburg

Gather the stars if you wish it so.Gather the songs and keep them.Gather the faces of women.Gather for keeping years and years.And then . . .

Loosen your hands, let go and say goodbye.Let the stars and songs go.Let the faces and years go.Loosen your hands and say goodbye.

Stars Whose Light ShinesHannah Szenes

There are stars whose light shines on the face of the earth after they are no longer in theheavens. There are people whose memory gives light after they are no longer amongus. These lights shine and illumine the road in darkness in the gray of night.

StreaksAnn Bushnell

Comets visitwhen they must.Flicking their dragon tailstoward earth,they hurtle by.Their passage fills the skywith dragon dust.

Earth’s ball of lifespins toward sun,trails clouds of cells and soulswhose clocks decreereleasefrom gravity.Their work is done.

Both souls and dustare called uponto streak the endless night,fall down from sky,brief light for mind and eye,cry gloryand pass on.

Sudden Death And The To Do ListCynthia B. Johnson

Comes the day when life stops.Sometimes abruptly. Unscheduled. Unplanned.The calendar full of appointments for tomorrows not to be.Large things, like tickets bought but not used.Like dinner parties for which invitations have been mailed, responses received.Like speeches scheduled and project deadlines agreed to.Small things, like clothes at the dry cleaners.Like a small stack of phone messages to be returned.Like two lamb chops thawing for tonight’s dinner.No one’s daytimer lists “Death –all day Wednesday” as the final appointment.

From Surviving DeathCharles Meyer

We do not recover from the death of a loved one. In fact, we never recover from thatdeath in the same way we recover from an illness or broken limb. It will always be a partof us – always – and to suggest otherwise is unrealistically and harshly to imply that wesomehow “get over” the feelings about the event or stop experiencing painfulreminiscences of the loved one or the death.

A much more accurate metaphor is represented in the old Carole King song “Tapestry.”

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hueAn everlasting vision of the everchanging viewA wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and goldA tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.

In fact our lives are “tapestries,” and the death of a loved one is a ripping, gaping,bleeding hole in the very midst of that tapestry of our life. How, then, is the tapestryrewoven? It does not, with the mere passage of time, magically pull itself back together.Rather, it is rewoven only with the initiative, energy, and strength of the survivorreaching in and grasping the torn ends of threads, painfully pulling them back and tyingthem together. And it is rewoven only with those persons around the survivor cuttingthreads from their own tapestries and bringing them to the survivor, with love andsupport and caring and tears and strength, helping to further tie the threads and fill in thegaping hole.

So, eventually, the tapestry is rewoven. But that “glitch” is always there, the roughnessof that reweaving is, and always will be, apparent. In fact it may be twenty years fromnow, as the survivor reviews the tapestry of his or her life, or is in a particular setting, orhears a song on the radio, or remembers a special day of the month, that the rewovenseam is seen and felt again, and the survivor remembers and cries, or feels sad, or istouched by the love and caring expressed by those whose threads are apparent there –and that is perfectly normal. We do not recover from a death, but when we allow othersto help, we can reweave our tapestry.

Take All The Risk Of LifeRabindranath Tagore

Taking shelter in the dead is death itself, and only taking all the risk of life to the fullestextent is living.

Talking To GriefDenise Levertov

Ah, Grief, I should not treat youlike a homeless dogwho comes to the back doorfor a crust, for a meatless bone.I should trust you.

I should coax youinto the house and give youyour own corner,a worn mat to lie on,your own water dish.

You think I don’t know you’ve been livingunder my porch.You long for your real place to be readiedbefore winter comes. You needyour name,your collar and tag. You needthe right to warn off intruders,to considermy house your ownand me your personand yourselfmy own dog.

TestamentAnne Morrow Lindbergh

‘But how can I live without you?’ she cried.I left all the world to you when I died;Beauty of earth and air and sea;Leap of a swallow or a tree;Kiss of rain and wind’s embrace;Passion of storm and winter’s face;Touch of feather, flower and stone;Chiseled line of branch or bone;Flight of stars, night’s caravan;Song of crickets – and of man –All these I put in my testament,All these I bequeathed you when I went.

‘But how can I see them without your eyesOr touch them without your hand?How can I hear them without your ear,Without your heart, understand?’These too, these too, I leave to you!

There Is No DeathJohn Luckey McCreery

There is no death! The stars go downTo rise upon some fairer shore,And bright in heaven’s jeweled crownThey shine for evermore.

There is no death! The dust we treadShall change beneath the summer showersTo golden grain or mellowed fruitOr rainbow-tinted flowers.

There is no death! The leaves may fall,And flowers may fade and pass away;They only wait, through wintry hours,The coming of the May.

And ever near us, though unseen,The dear immortal spirits tread;For all the boundless universeIs Life – there are no dead!

They Softly WalkHugh Robert Orr

They are not gone who passBeyond the clasp of hand,Out from the strong embrace,They are but come so closeWe need not grope with hands,Nor look to see, nor tryTo catch the sound of feet.They have put off their shoesSoftly to walk by dayWithin our thoughts, to treadAt night our dream-led paths.

They are not lost who findThe sunset gate, the goalOf all their faithful years.Nor lost are they who reachThe summit of their climb,The peak above the cloudsAnd storms. They are not lostWho find the light of sunAnd stars and God.

They are not dead who liveIn hearts they leave behindIn those who they have blessedThey live a life again,And shall live through the yearsEternal life, and growEach day more beautifulAs time declares their good,Forgets the rest, and provesTheir immortality.

This Existence Of OursBuddha

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds,To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance,A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky,Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

Those Who Are Gone You LoveWilliam Makepeace Thackeray

Those who are gone you love. Those who departed loving you love you still and youlove them always. They are not really gone, those dear hearts and true; they are onlygone into the next room, and you will get up presently and follow them, and yonder doorwill close upon you and you will be seen no more.

A Thought On DeathAnna Laetitia Barbauld

When life as opening buds is sweet,And golden hopes the fancy greet,And Youth prepares his joys to meet,Alas! how hard it is to die!

When just is seized some valued prize,And duties press, and tender tiesForbid the soul from earth to rise,How awful then it is to die!

When, one by one, those ties are torn,And friend from friend is snatched forlorn,And man is left alone to mourn,Ah then, how easy ’tis to die!

When faith is firm, and conscience clear,And words of peace the spirit cheer,And visioned glories half appear,’Tis joy, ’tis triumph then to die.

When trembling limbs refuse their weight,And films, slow gathering, dim the sight,And clouds obscure the mental light,’Tis nature’s precious boon to die.

Thoughts That Lie Too Deep For TearsWilliam Wordsworth

The Clouds that gather round the setting sunDo take a sober coloring from an eyeThat hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;Another race hath been, and other palms are won.Thanks to the human heart by which we live,Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,To me the meanest flower that blows can giveThoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

From ThrenodyRalph Waldo Emerson

The south-wind bringsLife, sunshine, and desire,And on every mount and meadowBreathes aromatic fire,But over the dead he has no power,The lost, the lost, he cannot restore,And, looking over the hills, I mournThe darling who shall not return.

Time And GriefWilliam Lisle Bowles

O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to laySoftest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence(Lulling to sad repose the weary sense)The faint pang stealest unperceived away;On thee I rest my only hope at last,And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tearThat flows in vain o’er all my soul held dear,I may look back on every sorrow past,And meet life’s peaceful evening with a smile:As some lone bird, at day’s departing hour,Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient showerForgetful, though its wings are wet the while:Yet ah! how much must this poor heart endure,Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

Time Does Not Bring ReliefEdna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have liedWho told me time would ease me of my pain!I miss him in the weeping of the rain;I want him at the shrinking of the tide;The old snows melt from every mountain-side,And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;But last year’s bitter loving must remainHeaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!There are a hundred places where I fearTo go, so with his memory they brim.And entering with relief some quiet placeWhere never fell his foot or shone his face,I say, ‘There is no memory of him here!’And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

A Time Of ThanksgivingKenneth Patton

Let this be a time of thanksgiving for a life lived, and not a brooding upon death.

To All ParentsEdgar Guest

“I’ll lend you for a little time a child of mine,” He said.“For you to love the while he lives and mourn when he is dead,“It may be six or seven years, or twenty-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, but should his stay be brief,“You’ll have his lovely memories, as solace for your grief,“I cannot promise he will stay, since all from earth return,“But there are lessons taught down there I want this child to learn.

“I’ve looked the wide world over in my search for teachers true,“And from the throngs that crowd life’s lanes I have selected you.“Now will you give him all your love, nor think the labor vain,“Nor hate me when I come to call to take him back again?”

I fancied that I heard them say: “Dear Lord, Thy will be done!“For all the joy Thy child shall bring, the risk of grief we’ll run.We’ll shelter him with tenderness; we’ll love him while we may,And for happiness we’ve known forever grateful stay.

“But should the angels call for him much sooner than we’d planned,“We’ll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand.”

To Everything There Is A SeasonEcclesiastes

To everything there is a season,A time for every purpose under heaven:A time to be born,And a time to die…

A time to weep,And a time to laugh;A time to mourn,And a time to dance…

A time to gain,And a time to lose…

To JoyMargaret Mary Gilley

Through the morning mist you reached outAnd touched me into prayer. I feltYour presence: a sea of peaceAnd just a little fear. All joy,Like a white church upon a hill,Shining spire stretching out to heavenAnd welcoming the glory of a kingdom coming close.

For you I could rejoice, for the voiceOf angels was almost within hearing;But I could feel the parting void,And I wept because I knewThat I must let go my need of you.

To Live And Bravely FightNorbert Capek

It is worthwhile for me to liveAnd bravely fight for saintly idealsAlthough disappointed a thousand timesAnd perhaps even to fall in this fightWhen everything would seem in vain.

Blow, angry winds, through my stony body;You will not conquer my soul.I have lived in the center of eternity,My soul will be eternal.My living was worth it.

Whoever has been set upon from all sides,But with his soul has conquered,Is welcome in the chorus of heroes.Whoever has broken his shacklesAnd given wings to his mindIs marching into a golden future.

To Those I LoveIsla Paschal Richardson

If I should ever leave you whom I loveTo go along the silent way,Grieve not,Nor speak of me with tears,But laugh and talk of meAs if I were beside you there.

(I’d come – I’d come, could I but find a way!But would not tears and grief be barriers?)

And when you hear a song orSee a bird I loved,Please do not let the thought of me be sad...For I am loving you just as I always have...You were so good to me!

There are so many things I wanted still to do –So many things to say to you...Remember that I did not fear…It was just leaving you that was so hard to face...We cannot see beyond...But this I know:I love you so –

’twas heaven here with you!

Toward Union With A Greater WholenessPierre Teilhard de Chardin

We struggle against death with all our force, for it is our fundamental duty as livingcreatures to do so. But when, by virtue of the state of things, death comes, weexperience that paradox of faith that causes us to abandon the struggle and affirm deathas part of a greater plan for the universe as a whole.

To love life so much, and to trust it so completely that we can affirm it even in its finalact... this is an attitude that can calm and fortify us.

The end is to love extravagantly the life that is greater than any one of us, seeing ourown death as a physically necessary passage toward union with a greater wholeness.

From To W. P.George Santayana

Living you made it goodlier to live,Dead you will make it easier to die.

With you a part of me hath passed away;For in the peopled forest of my mindA tree made leafless by this wintry windShall never don again its green array.

Chapel and fireside, country road and bay,Have something of their friendliness resigned;Another, if I would, I could not find,And I am grown much older in a day.

But yet I treasure in my memoryYour gift of charity, your mellow ease,And the dear honor of your amity;For these once mine, my life is rich with these.

And I scarce know which part may greater be, –What I keep of you, or you rob of me.

TransfigurationLouisa May Alcott

Mysterious death! who in a single hourLife’s gold can so refineAnd by thy art divineChange mortal weakness to immortal power!

Bending beneath the weight of eighty yearsSpent with the noble strifeOf a victorious lifeWe watched her fading heavenward, through our tears.

But ere the sense of loss our hearts had wrungA miracle was wrought;And swift as happy thoughtShe lived again: brave, beautiful, and young.

Age, pain, and sorrow dropped the veils they woreAnd showed the tender eyesOf angels in disguise,Whose discipline so patiently she bore.

The past years brought their harvest rich and fair,While memory and love,Together, fondly woveA golden garland for the silver hair.

How could we mourn like those who are bereft,When every pang of griefFound balm for its reliefIn counting up the treasures she had left?

Faith that withstood the shocks of toil and time,Hope that defied despair,Patience that conquered care,And loyalty, whose courage was sublime…

We thought to weep, but sing for joy instead,Full of the grateful peaceThat follows her release;For nothing but the weary dust lies dead.

The TreesPhilip Larkin

The trees are coming into leafLike something almost being said;The recent buds relax and spread,Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born againAnd we grow old? No, they die too,Their yearly trick of looking newIs written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles threshIn fullgrown thickness every May.Last year is dead, they seem to say,Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Turn Again To LifeMary Lee Hall

If I should die and leave you here awhile,Be not like others, sore undone, who keepLong vigils by the silent dust, and weep.For my sake, turn again to life and smile,Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to doSomething to comfort weaker hearts than thine.Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mineAnd I perchance may therein comfort you.

The Turning Hour Of LifePhillips Brooks

There are no times in life when opportunity, the chance to be and to do, gathers so richlyabout the soul as when it has to suffer. Then everything depends upon whether the manlooks to the lower or the higher helps… If he looks to God, the hour of suffering is theturning hour of life.

A Valediction: Forbidding MourningJohn Donne

As virtuous men pass mildly away,And whisper to their souls to go,Whilst some of their sad friends do sayThe breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,’Twere profanation of our joysTo tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears,Men reckon what it did and meant,But trepidation of the spheres,Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love(Whose soul is sense) cannot admitAbsence, because it doth removeThose things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refinedThat our selves know not what it is,Inter-assur’d of the mind,Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,Though I must go, endure not yetA breach, but an expansion,Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two soAs stiff twin compasses are two;Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no showTo move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the centre sit,Yet when the other far doth roam,It leans, and hearkens after it,And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who mustLike th’ other foot, obliquely run;Thy firmness makes my circle just,And makes me end, where I begun.

Vitae Summa BrevisErnest Dowson

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,Love and desire and hate:I think they have no portion in us afterWe pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:Out of a misty dreamOur path emerges for a while, then closesWithin a dream.

We Bereaved Are Not AloneHelen Keller

We bereaved are not alone… When it seems that our sorrow is too great to be borne, letus think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given usentrance, and inevitably, we will feel about us their arms, their sympathy, theirunderstanding.

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world.So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.

We Cannot JudgeViktor Frankl

We cannot judge a biography by its length,Nor by the number of pages in it.We must judge it by the richness of its contents

Sometimes those unfinished are among the most poignant…

We cannot judge a song by its durationNor by the number of its notesWe must judge it by the way it touches and lifts our souls

Sometimes those unfinished are among the most beautiful…

And when something has enriched your lifeAnd when its melody lingers on in your heartIs it unfinished?Or is it endless?

We Grow Accustomed To The DarkEmily Dickinson

We grow accustomed to the Dark,When light is put away,As when the neighbour holds the lampTo witness her Goodbye.

A moment we uncertain stepFor the newness of the night,Then, fit our vision to the Dark,And meet the road erect.

And so of larger Darknesses,Those evenings of the brain,When not a Moon discloses a sign,Or star, come out, within.

The Bravest grope a little,And sometimes hit a tree,Directly in the forehead,But as they learn to see,Either Darkness altersOr something in the sightAdjusts itself to Midnight,And life steps almost straight.

The Well Of GriefDavid Whyte

Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief

turning downward through its black water to the place we cannot breathe

will never know the source from which we drink, the secret water, cold and clear,

nor find in the darkness glimmering the small round coins thrown by those who wished for something else.

We Need Not Fear The Coming Of The DarkEdward Stanley of Alderley

“Old men forget!” Aye! It may well be so:But youth remembers all the magic spunAnd woven in the warm fraternal glowOf your companionship. Your day is done?It is not true. You know you left behindA memory of courage which the yearsCan but increase. And we, your heirs will findThat in good truth there’s nothing here for tears.

So be it. This your legacy to youth –To make the best of all your days,And finally to recognize the truthThat you have shown us, silhouetted, stark,That though we loved the sunlight’s summer raysWe need not fear the coming of the dark.

We Will Grieve NotWilliam Wordsworth

What though the radiance which was once so brightBe now for ever taken from my sight,Though nothing can bring back the hourOf splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;We will grieve not, rather findStrength in what remains behind;In the primal sympathyWhich having been must ever be;In the soothing thoughts that springOut of human suffering;In the faith that looks through death,In years that bring the philosophic mind.

What Is It To Die?Kahlil Gibran

What is it to die but to stand naked in the wind, and to melt into the sun? And what is itto cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides that it may rise andexpand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence,shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountaintop, then you shallbegin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then you shall truly dance.

What Will You Give?Rabindranath Tagore

What will you giveWhen death knocks at your door?

The fullness of my life –The sweet wine of autumn days and summer nights,My little hoard gleaned through the years,And hours rich with living.

These will be my giftWhen death knocks at my door.

When I Am Dead, My DearestChristina Rossetti

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 meWith 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 nightingaleSing on, as if in pain;And dreaming through the twilightThat doth not rise nor set,Haply I may remember,And haply may forget.

When I DieMerrit Malloy

When I dieGive what’s left of me awayTo childrenAnd old men that wait to die.And if you need to cry,Cry for your brotherWalking the street beside you.And when you need me,Put your armsAround anyoneAnd give themWhat you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something,Something betterThan wordsOr sounds.

Look for meIn the people I’ve knownOr loved,And if you cannot give me away,At least let me live on your eyesAnd not on your mind.

You can love me mostBy lettingHands touch hands,By lettingBodies touch bodies,And by letting goOf childrenThat need to be free.

Love doesn’t die,People do.So, when all that’s left of meIs love,Give me away.

When I Die And Leave BehindAuthor unknown

When I die and leave behindThis earth I loveThese trees, this sky,The pounding sea,The yearly hope of spring,Cry not for me,Rejoice.

My soul has wingsAnd in its freedom sings.

From When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’dWalt Whitman

Come, lovely and soothing Death,Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,In the day, in the night, to all, to each,Sooner or later, delicate Death.

Prais’d be the fathomless universe,For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious;And for love, sweet love – but praise! praise! praise!For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.

Dark Mother, always gliding near with soft feet,Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?Then I chant it for thee – I glorify thee above all;I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach, strong Deliveress!When it is so – when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead,Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee,Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.

From me to thee glad serenades,Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee – adornments and feastings for thee;And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night, in silence, under many a star;The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know;And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veil’d Death,And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song!Over the rising and sinking waves – over the myriad fields, and the prairies wide;Over the dense-pack’d cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways,I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O Death!

When My Hour Is ComeGeorge William Russell

When my hour is comeLet no teardrop fallAnd no darkness hoverRound me where I lie.Let the vastness callOne who was its lover,Let me breathe the sky.

Where the lordly lightWalks along the world,And its silent treadLeaves the grasses bright,Leaves the flowers uncurled,Let me to the deadBreathe a gay goodnight.

When We Finally Know We Are DyingSogyal Rinpoche)

When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, westart to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness ofeach moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitlesscompassion for all beings.

Address To The LivingJohn Holmes

We live, we are elected now by time,Few out of many not yet come to birth,And many dead, to use the daylight now,To stand up under the sun upon the earth.

Then break the silence with a voice of praise;Open the door that opens toward the sky;Press mind and body hard against this world,Before we fall asleep, before we die.

The WidowerRudyard Kipling

For a season there must be pain –For a little, little spaceI shall lose the sight of her face,Take back the old life againWhile She is at rest in her place.

For a season this pain must endure,For a little, little whileI shall sigh more often than smileTill Time shall work me a cure,And the pitiful days beguile.

For that season we must be apart,For a little length of years,Till my life’s last hour nears,And, above the beat of my heart,I hear Her voice in my ears.

But I shall not understand –Being set on some later love,Shall not know her for whom I strove,Till she reach me forth her hand,Saying, ‘Who but I have the right?’And out of a troubled nightShall draw me safe to the land.

Good News - Bad NewsMay the face of every good newsAnd the back of every bad newsBe toward us.

On the Saddest DaysMay the saddest day of your future be no worseThan the happiest day of your past

Shining Through The TearsIt's easy to be pleasant when life flows by like a song.But the man worth while is the one who can smileWhen everything goes dead wrong.For the test of the heart is trouble and it always comes with years.And the smile that is worth the praises of earthIs the smile that shines through the tears.

Weeping and SorrowWhen you are sorrowful look again in your heart,and you shall see that in truthyou are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Leaving Indelible ImprintsI know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death.They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make.Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories.We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love.

Remembering Past MeetingsOh, here's to other meetings,And merry greetings then;And here's to those we've drunk with,But never can again.

Being AliveMay we all be alive this time in twelve months.

Live in HeartsTo live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.

Comforting SunMay the sunshine of comfortdispel the clouds of despair.

Rainbows, Laughter and TearsMay you findRainbows after every storm,May you remember the laughterSmiles in the tears

Taken From Me

Angie Flores

I'm sitting here in my room, looking at your picture. Wondering why you couldn't be a part of my future. Uncontrollable tears stream down my face, while my heart beat starts to race. Asking god why he took you from my life, it was more painful than stabbing me in the heart with a knife. I still needed you here you were the one to make everything so clear. you are apart of me and I am apart of you when you died a part of me died too. I never knew how hard it was to loose someone you love until the day you went to heaven above. Even though I can't see, I know your up there watching over me. I miss you more and more everyday and all I can do is pray. In my heart you shall forever remain.

You Will See Them Someday

Stephan Banks

when you lose someone it can be hard to take the pain that you feel when your heart has to break the memories you keep are all in your mind as you search your soul for more to find the way their skin felt the smell of their hair as you keep thinking over and shedding a tear the years may pass, memories fade to grey but your getting no younger you'll see them someday unconditional love is never forgotten look deep in your heart it is there at the bottom alone in the dark sometimes in fear voices from loved ones your hoping to hear more years pass, they soon fly by but your always looked upon from those in the sky surrounded by clouds and pure white doves they listen and watch sending you love just remember one thing as you sit and you pray they will be there to greet you, you will see them someday.

When Cardinals Fly

Cardinals fly o'er mountain streamsAloft with all my hopes and dreamsTo see you both off on your ownI wish you all the joy I’ve known

The walks we took were manyBut these next steps are fewAlone you walk this final pathThen turn and leave as two

If ever should you need meJust take a walk outsideAnd cast your thoughts upon the windsAnd watch the cardinals fly

In My MindJenn Farrell

Somewhere in my dreams tonightI'll see you standing thereYou look at me with a smile"Life isn't always fair"

You say you were chosen for his gardenHis preciously hand picked bouquet"God really needed me,That's why I couldn't stay"

It's said to be that angelsAre sent from aboveI've always had my angelMy brother - whose heart was filled with love

Wherever the ocean meets the skyThere will be memories of you and IWhen I look up at that sky so blueAll I see are visions of you