Poem for Parents Funeral

Your parents may have lived their life caring for you, giving you guidance, and helping you in the best way they knew how. Poems of their encouragement, care and love often can be found within the verses of a poem.

Here are a few of our favorite selections for a poem for a parents funeral to read or use at a funeral. To the best of our knowledge all of the material here is freely available in the public domain and not subject to copy-right laws or is available for ‘fair use’. However if we have unintentionally infringed anyone’s copyright please contact us and we will remove the material immediately.

Gates of Prayer

–Reform Judaism Prayer Book

As long s we live, they too will live; for they are now a part of us; As we remember them! At the rising sun and at its going down we remember them. At the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter we remember them. At the opening of the buds and in the rebirth of spring we remember them. At the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer we remember them. At the rustling of the leaves and in the beauty of the autumn we remember them. All the beginning of the year and when it ends we remember them.

As long as we live, they too will live, for they are now a part of us. As we remember them. When we are weary and in need of strength we remember them. When we are lost and sick at heart we remember them. When we have joy we crave to share we remember them. When we have achievements that are based on theirs we remember them.

For as long as we live, they too will live, for they are now a part of us, as we remember them.

• • • •

Sonnets X

––John Donne

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

• • • •

Death Be Not Proud

––John Donne

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.