Best Poems For Funerals
Poetry and other short readings can play a meaningful role in a memorial or funeral service. There are themes of grief, loss, longing, hope, and the expectation of salvation have all been powerfully expressed in poetry for many years. Many people may find their profound feelings expressed in poetry verses. Here is a collection of some of our favorite and best poems for funerals.
The Old Familiar Faces by Charles Lamb
I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days–
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies–
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I loved a Love once, fairest among women:
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her–
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.
Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,
Earth seem’d a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.
Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father’s dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces–
How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed–
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Eternity by William Blake
He who binds himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy.
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sun rise.
A Song of Living by Amelia Josephine Burr
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
I have sent up my gladness on wings, to be lost in the blue of the sky.
I have run and leaped with the rain, I have taken the wind to my breast.
My cheek like a drowsy child to the face of the earth I have pressed.
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
I have kissed young Love on the lips, I have heard his song to the end.
I have struck my hand like a seal in the loyal hand of a friend.
I have known the peace of heave; the comfort of work done well.
I have longed for death in the darkness and risen alive out of hell.
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
I give a share of my soul to the world where my course is run.
I know that another shall finish the task I must leave undone.
I know that no flower, nor flint was in vain on the path I trod.
As one looks on a face through a window, through life I have looked on God.
Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.
No Funeral Gloom by George MacDonald
A voice in the wind I do not know;
A meaning on the face of the high hills
Whose utterance I cannot comprehend.
A something is behind them: that is God.
Death is a Door by Nancy Byrd Turner
Death is only an old door
Set in a garden wall;
On gentle hinges it gives, at dusk
When the thrushes call.
Along the linted are green leaves,
Beyond the light lies still;
Very willing and weary feet
Go over that sill.
There is nothing to trouble any heart;
Nothing to hurt at all.
Death is only a quiet door
In an old wall.
