Under the wide and starry skyDig 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 long’d to be;Home is the sailor, home from sea,And the hunter home from the hill.
Funerals
Short funeral poems
Short poems for a funeral or memorial, each under 80 words so it fits on an order of service or can be read aloud in under a minute, even by someone who is nervous or upset. Stevenson's Requiem, Shelley's Music, When Soft Voices Die, Emily Brontë's Last Lines and Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop for Death are here, with short Shakespeare speeches and Longfellow's Be Still, Sad Heart. Most are not religious. All are public domain, so they can be printed freely, and each is copied word for word from the original.
How to use these
- On an order of service, print the poem with its title and poet, and leave the line breaks exactly as they are.
- If someone else is reading, give them a printed copy in large type a few days early.
- Dickinson's and Shakespeare's punctuation is kept as printed; read through the dashes rather than stopping at each one.
Music, when soft voices die,Vibrates in the memory;Odours, when sweet violets sicken,Live within the sense they quicken.Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,Are heap’d for the belovèd’s bed;And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,Love itself shall slumber on.
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.
Because I could not stop for Death,He kindly stopped for me;The carriage held but just ourselvesAnd Immortality.
The bustle in a houseThe morning after deathIs solemnest of industriesEnacted upon earth, —The sweeping up the heart,And putting love awayWe shall not want to use againUntil eternity.
I never saw a moor,I never saw the sea;Yet know I how the heather looks,And what a wave must be.I never spoke with God,Nor visited in heaven;Yet certain am I of the spotAs if the chart were given.
If I can stop one heart from breaking,I shall not live in vain;If I can ease one life the aching,Or cool one pain,Or help one fainting robinUnto his nest again,I shall not live in vain.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
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 night,And pay no worship to the garish sun.
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.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,All losses are restor’d and sorrows end.
’Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.
Time isToo Slow for those who Wait,Too Swift for those who Fear,Too Long for those who Grieve,Too Short for those who Rejoice;But for those who Love,Time is not.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;Thy fate is the common fate of all,Into each life some rain must fall,Some days must be dark and dreary.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThe Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1893 · The Rainy Day
Read the full text
Read the full text
In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below.
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.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,Missing me one place search another,I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Hope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soul,And sings the tune without the words,And never stops at all,And sweetest in the gale is heard;And sore must be the stormThat could abash the little birdThat kept so many warm.I 've heard it in the chillest land,And on the strangest sea;Yet, never, in extremity,It asked a crumb of me.
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;But O heart! heart! heart!O the bleeding drops of red,Where on the deck my Captain lies,Fallen cold and dead.
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