Ten short readings for funerals and condolence, each from poetry long out of copyright, each checked word for word against its edition. Choose up to six for an order of service, then print it or download it as a PDF. Take your time: nothing here hurries you, and nothing you choose ever leaves this page.
10 of 10 readings.
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Alfred Tennyson (d. 1892), In Memoriam, In Memoriam, XXVII · about 15 seconds to read aloud
Two lines almost everyone knows, with the two that lead into them. For saying the love was worth the loss.
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Alfred Tennyson (d. 1892), In Memoriam, In Memoriam, Prologue · about 15 seconds to read aloud
The opening of In Memoriam, written after Tennyson lost his closest friend. For a service with faith in it.
Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep!
He hath awakened from the dream of life.
’Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
Percy Bysshe Shelley (d. 1822), Adonais, Adonais, stanza 39 · about 20 seconds to read aloud
Shelley on Keats: it is the living who dream, and the dead who have woken. Read it slowly; the second line lands hard.
He has outsoared the shadow of our night.
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (d. 1822), Adonais, Adonais, stanza 40 · about 20 seconds to read aloud
The stanza after: nothing can hurt them now. For a death after long suffering, when rest is the mercy.
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 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 Georgina Rossetti (d. 1894), Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems, “Remember”, sonnet · about 1 minute to read aloud
The whole sonnet, as she wrote it. It gives the mourners permission twice over: remember me, and do not grieve.
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 me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
Christina Georgina Rossetti (d. 1894), Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems, “Song” (“When I am dead, my dearest”), first stanza · about 25 seconds to read aloud
Gentle and plain, in short lines that carry in a large room. The last two lines often steady a reader's voice.
Fear no more the heat o’ the 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.
William Shakespeare (d. 1616), Cymbeline, Cymbeline, Act IV (first stanza; spelling modernised) · about 25 seconds to read aloud
Sung over a body mistaken for dead. Four hundred years of funerals have not worn it out; it still does the work.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
William Shakespeare (d. 1616), The Tempest, The Tempest, Act I (Ariel’s song) · about 25 seconds to read aloud
For someone lost to the sea, or who loved it. Change “father” to mother, brother, friend as the life requires.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone—nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre.
William Cullen Bryant (d. 1878), Poems (Thanatopsis), Thanatopsis (the middle passage) · about 30 seconds to read aloud
Nobody lies down alone: kings and seers are already there. Bryant was nineteen when the first of this was printed.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
William Cullen Bryant (d. 1878), Poems (Thanatopsis), Thanatopsis (the closing) · about 40 seconds to read aloud
The famous ending, and the longest reading here. It asks something of the living, so it suits the close of a service.
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Every line on this page is public domain in Australia. 10 readings from 6 editions:
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This set was assembled for families choosing under time pressure, and for the celebrants guiding them. If a reading does not sit right for a particular life, leave it out: no set this small fits every farewell. If you use it with a family, what helped and what was missing would be worth telling its makers — but not here, and not in any form on this page, which takes nothing from its visitors.