Funeral readings

These are just a very few of the possible readings for a funeral. You might start a wider search by looking at the Old Poets website.

Do not stand at my bier and weep,
I am not there. I do not sleep,
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush of
Quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my bier and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.

[Native North American prayer]

 

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 are still
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way you always used.
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed 
at the little jokes 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 effort, 
without the ghost of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was; 
there is absolutely unbroken continuity....

Why should I be out of your mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval,
Somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well

[Henry Scott Holland, English clergyman, First World War, slightly adapted]

 

Departed comrade! Thou, redeemed from pain
Shall sleep the sleep that kings desire in vain:
Not thine the sense of loss
But lo, for us the void
That never shall be filled again.
Not thine but ours the grief.
All pain is fled from thee.
And we are weeping in thy stead;
Tears for the mourners who are left behind
Peace everlasting for the quiet dead.

[Lucretius, Roman Epicurean philosopher]

“You know how little time we have to stay,
“And, once departed, may return no more.”

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
Today of past Regrets and future fears....

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and - sans End!..

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. 

[From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by R Burton]

 

Our revels are now ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air;

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded in a sleep.

[Shakespeare, The Tempest, III, iv ]

 

The rich and the poor listen to the voice of death;
the learned and the unlearned listen;
the proud and the humble listen;
the honest and deceitful listen;
the old and the young listen.
But when death speaks to us, what does it say?
Death does not speak about itself. 
It does not say "Fear me".
It does not say, "Wonder at me."
It does not say "Understand me".
But it says to us:
"Think of life;
Think of the privilege of life;
Think how great a thing life may be made."

[Anon]

 

To everything there is a season, 

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

 

A time to be born, and a time to die; 

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

 

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; 

a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 

 

A time to get, and a time to lose; 

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 

A time to rend, and a time to sew; 

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

 

A time to love, and a time to hate; 

a time of war, and a time of peace.

[Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, verses i-ii, iv, vi-viii ]

There is a book of funeral readings compiled by the late Brian Malcouronne of Auckland, Honouring Our Loved Ones: Notes and resources for funeral celebrants, families and friends, which I  reviewed in the Celebrants Association of New Zealand Newsletter: Honouring our Pioneers.