Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you planned:

Only remember me, you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Rossetti (1830–94)

Heaven-Haven

I have desired to go

Where springs not fail,

To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail

And a few lilies blow.

And I have asked to be

Where no storms come,

Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,

And out of the swing of the sea.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)

Life Goes On

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.

Joyce Grenfell (1910–79)

Living Each Day

Now I am gone, now I am lost to you

Find me again just as you used to do:

In the house – when you go from room to room you’ll find

The bits and pieces that I’ve left behind.

In the street – of course… I’ve stopped to window-shop;

You carry on, my love, I’ll catch you up.

At night – as darkness slowly fills the sky:

I’m late; don’t fret; I’ll be there by and by.

At morning – when the sky is still blue-black,

I had to go out early: I’ll be back.

In sunshine – as you peer into the glare –

A shape that seems to be both light and air.

In rain – as you look out and people pass –

One leaves a reflection printed on the glass.

In the garden – when you doze away the hours

I pass with a smile on my face, and my arms full of flowers.

Lisa Kitson (1961– )

‘Death is nothing at all’

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way that you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of a shadow on it.