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Back Poems and Readings for Funerals Save as PDF
Chapters (98)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Foreword
  4. REMEMBER ME WHEN I AM GONE AWAY …
  5. ‘Remember me when I am gone away’
  6. Heaven-Haven
  7. Life Goes On
  8. Living Each Day
  9. ‘Death is nothing at all’
  10. Remember Me
  11. ‘I’m here for a short visit only’
  12. ‘No longer mourn for me when I am dead’
  13. If Death is Kind
  14. Fare Well
  15. When I Died
  16. ‘Because I could not stop for Death’
  17. ‘I see myself now at the end of my journey’
  18. Requiem
  19. ‘I thought I’d write my own obituary’
  20. Think of Me Then
  21. The New Path
  22. Footprints in the Sand
  23. The Book
  24. The Legacy
  25. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy for ever’
  26. When I Have Fears
  27. A Song of Living
  28. ‘I should like to be buried in a summer forest’
  29. ‘I would not have a god come in’
  30. I’ve Made Out a Will
  31. Coda
  32. Rest
  33. Prayer
  34. A TINY LAMP HAS GONE OUT IN MY TENT …
  35. ‘You must not shut the night inside you’
  36. Prayer for the Little Daughter between Death and Burial
  37. Epitaph on a Child
  38. On the Death of a Child
  39. Four Candles
  40. Too Soon
  41. Requiescat
  42. ‘Promise you won’t forget about me, ever’
  43. HE WAS MY NORTH, MY SOUTH, MY EAST AND WEST …
  44. Funeral Blues
  45. ‘Music, when soft voices die’
  46. ‘As birds are fitted to the boughs’
  47. Farewell, Sweet Dust
  48. Echo
  49. The Kaleidoscope
  50. Verses Written on Her Deathbed at Bath to Her Husband in London
  51. A Widow’s Hymn
  52. ‘Time does not bring relief’
  53. Tomorrows
  54. ‘Never more will the wind’
  55. Marriage and Death
  56. Inseparable
  57. ‘Dear gentle soul, who went so soon away’
  58. In Memoriam E. S.
  59. WORN FEATURES OF ANCESTRAL MOULD …
  60. Highland Graveyard
  61. ‘Another and another and another’
  62. ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun’
  63. ‘By ways remote and distant waters sped’
  64. ‘Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore’
  65. Elegy
  66. I Wish You Enough
  67. While I Slept
  68. ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’
  69. Coat
  70. ‘The rooms and days we wandered through’
  71. The Friend
  72. ‘You can shed tears that she is gone’
  73. Inside Our Dreams
  74. Traditional Gaelic Blessing
  75. TO EVERY THING THERE IS A SEASON …
  76. ‘To every thing there is a season’
  77. ‘Our revels now are ended’
  78. So Many Different Lengths of Time
  79. ‘Come, fill the Cup’
  80. ‘Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth’
  81. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels’
  82. ‘Death be not proud’
  83. ‘Home is where one starts from’
  84. Dirge without Music
  85. ‘don’t tell me that I mourn too much’
  86. All Things Pass
  87. Earth
  88. On Death
  89. Gone from My Sight
  90. The Wheel
  91. Live Your Life
  92. Prayer
  93. Old Irish Toast
  94. For My Own Tomb-stone
  95. Notes
  96. Acknowledgements
  97. JULIA WATSON
  98. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

Prayer for the Little Daughter between Death and Burial

Now you are standing face to face with the clear light

believe in it

Now you have gone back into where air comes from

hold fast to it

Now you have climbed to the top of the topless tower

and there are no stairs down

and the only way is flight past the edge of the world

do not remember us

Like the new moon in the sky of the shortest day

you came to us

as the candles burnt with a steady light behind misty windows

you whispered to us

as the singers moved behind doors of un-attainable rooms

you burst in on us

Lady of the shortest day, silent upon the threshold

carrying green branches

Lady of the crown of light going into clear light

be safe on your journey

Bright lady of the dark day, who pushed back the darkness

say nothing to us

as we plod through the frozen field

going from somewhere to somewhere

do not speak to us

as we stand at the centre of the frozen lake

and trees of cloud stand over us

forget us

When we come to you we shall find you

who have seen Persephone

you whom our mothers called Lady of the city

will welcome us with tapers, and believe in us

When small harsh birds bubble and pump in our nude trees

and water will rush and gush through the slippery street

and two skies will look at each other

one of air and one below

of water

you will rest with us, and of us:

Lady of the shortest day

watch over our daughter

whom we commit to the grass

Diana Scott (1947–)

Epitaph on a Child

Here, freed from pain, secure from misery, lies

A child, the darling of his parents’ eyes:

A gentler Lamb ne’er sported on the plain,

A fairer flower will never bloom again:

Few were the days allotted to his breath;

Now let him sleep in peace his night of death.

Thomas Gray (1716–71)

On the Death of a Child

The greatest griefs shall find themselves inside the smallest cage.

It’s only then that we can hope to tame their rage,

The monsters we must live with. For it will not do

To hiss humanity because one human threw

Us out of heart and home. Or part

At odds with life because one baby failed to live.

Indeed, as little as its subject, is the wreath we give —

The big words fail to fit. Like giant boxes

Round small bodies. Taking up improper room,

Where so much withering is, and so much bloom.

D. J. Enright (1920–2002)

Four Candles

The first candle represents our grief.

The pain of losing you is intense

It reminds us of the depth of our love for you.

The 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.