To ask for your favourite funeral readings?

[MrsBennetsPoorNerves]

Just that, please.

Thanks very much. ❤️

Sorry, I forgot to disable the vote.

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
(Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!)

The Dash

Afterwards, Thomas hardy

I read this at my dads:

The Unknown Shore
Sometime at eve when the tide is low,
I shall slip my moorings and sail away,
With no response to a friendly hail,
In the silent hush of the twilight pale,
When the night stoops down to embrace the day
And the voices call in the water's flow.

Sometime at eve when the tide is low,
I shall slip my moorings and sail away.
Through purple shadows that darkly trail
O'er the ebbing tide of the unknown sea,
And a ripple of waters to tell the tale
Of a lonely voyager, sailing away
To mystic isles, where at anchor lay
The craft of those who had sailed before
O'er the unknown sea to the unknown shore.

A few who have watched me sail away
Will miss my craft from the busy bay;
Some friendly barques were anchored near,
Some loving souls that my heart held dear
In silent sorrow will drop a tear;
But I shall have peacefully furled my sail
In mooring sheltered from the storm and gale,
And greeted friends who had sailed before
O'er the unknown sea to the unknown shore.

Sorry for your loss x

Death is Nothing At All ( All is Well) by Henry Scott Holland

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together
is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which 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 that 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 an effort,
without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting
when we meet again!

This-by Brian Cox. Our story is the story of the Universe. Every piece of everyone and everything you love, of everything you hate,of everything you hold precious was assembled in thefirst few minutes of the life of the Universe, and transformed in the hearts of stars, or created in their fiery deaths.When you die, those pieces will be returned to the Universe in the endless cycle of death and rebirth. What a wonderful thing to be part of that Universe. And what a story. What a majestic story!

I’m sorry for your loss OP, We also chose this for my dad

Dirge without music (Edna St Vincent Millay)

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Funeral Prayer (Don Paterson)

Today we friends and strangers meet
because our friend is now complete.
She has left time. Perhaps we feel
we are the ghosts and her the real -
so fixed and constant does she seem,
so starlike. May the human dream
arise again to find her woken
at its heart, though to be spoken
once is as miraculous
as a thousand times. What utters us,
blind nature, told the trees and birds
and bright stars; yet of all the words
we knew, her name was the most dear.
We give thanks she was spoken here.

Inarticulate Grief (Richard Aldington)

Let the sea beat its thin torn hands
In anguish against the shore,
Let it moan
Between headland and cliff;
Let the sea shriek out its agony
Across waste sands and marshes,
And clutch great ships,
Tearing them plate from steel plate
In reckless anger;
Let it break the white bulwarks
Of harbour and city;
Let it sob and scream and laugh
In a sharp fury,
With white salt tears
Wet on its writhen face;
Ah! let the sea still be mad
And crash in madness among the shaking rocks—
For the sea is the cry of our sorrow.

So sorry for your loss - I think Sea Canes by Derek Walcott is amazing.

Sea Canes

Half my friends are dead.
I will make you new ones, said earth.
No, give me them back, as they were, instead,
with faults and all, I cried.

Tonight I can snatch their talk
from the faint surf's drone
through the canes, but I cannot walk

on the moonlit leaves of ocean
down that white road alone,
or float with the dreaming motion

of owls leaving earth's load.
O earth, the number of friends you keep
exceeds those left to be loved.

The sea canes by the cliff flash green and silver;
they were the seraph lances of my faith,
but out of what is lost grows something stronger

that has the rational radiance of stone,
enduring moonlight, further than despair,
strong as the wind, that through dividing canes

brings those we love before us, as they were,
with faults and all, not nobler, just there.

We had this for my dad's, Gone From My Sight (another sea/ships one!):

I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship, at my side, spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says, ‘There, she is gone.’
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast, hull and spar as she was when she left my side. And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me — not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, ‘There, she is gone,’ there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, ‘Here she comes!’

Henry van Dyke

(There's a final line, 'And that is dying', but we left that out, because it's a bit.. obvious.)

These are what we had at my FILs funeral in August, he had a service at the crematorium lead by an Anglican vicar.

Heavens Fishing Hole - Jill Eisnaugle
For years, the riverbank was where
Your soul felt most at peace
Your heart was most content when there
With the fish and the geese
But then, your spirit came to rest
Where angels chose to roam
And once equipped with ten pound test
You made yourself at home.

The sky became your deep blue sea
The clouds became your shore
And there, for all eternity
You sat with friends galore
Each angel was a fisherman
Who had traded his pole
For golden wings and a game plan
At Heaven’s Fishing Hole.

The tales you told about each catch
Its stature and its girth
Will live in memories unmatched
As days pass here on earth
Until we meet again, one day
Upon God’s golden sand
We’ll picture you, no other way
Than with a pole in hand.

Death (If I Should Go) by Joyce Grenfell
If I should go before the rest of you
Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone
Nor when I'm gone speak in a Sunday voice
But be the usual selves that I have known
Weep if you must
Parting is Hell
But life goes on
So sing as well.

Blessing
May you go forward today with a small flickering of light in your soul.
May the memories of your loved one begin to bring comfort rather than pain.
May the words, touch and presence of others bring solace.
And may you be blessed in your coming in and going out,
grateful for a life lived and a legacy left behind.
Go in peace.

DS read this at great grandmothers funeral

Grandmother
God looked around his garden
and found an empty space.
Then he looked down upon this earth
And saw your tired face.
He put his arms around you
And lifted you to rest.
God’s garden must be beautiful
He only takes the best.

In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

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.

Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The scepter, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownèd be thy grave!

Shakespeare (Cymbeline)

On the death of the beloved: Blessing and Funeral Poem by John O'Donohue
Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or night or pain can reach you.
Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives,
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of color.
The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.
Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being,
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.
Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was alive, awake, complete.
We look toward each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul's gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.
Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Besides us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.
When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.
May you continue to inspire us:
To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.
By John O’Donohue

Not for a funeral reading but a poem for those that are suffering grief -

For Grief | John O’Donohue

When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.

Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.

This poem is from John O’Donohue’s book of blessings called “To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings.”

It's a bit unconventional, but I do like this:

When I die, please fling my ashes somewhere warm
I pass the graveyard every day and the headstones look so cold

Don’t bother with a patch of ground for flowers plucked to wilt upon
As people pass and count my years, leave earth’s well-formed rocks alone

Don’t shove me in another urn, a golden box atop a shelf,
so bored I’d be up there alone. Save your cash, enjoy yourself

Go mourn me – if you want to mourn –
Somewhere we have loved to be
Get two pornstar martinis, down both prosecco shots for me
Cup the floating passion fruit, lick the juices greedily

Go snuggle in the cinema, read a whole book on the couch
Get your arse up on a dancefloor, move your bones about

Buy niger seeds and birdfeeders and watch the goldfinch flock
Climb up the Campsie fells, flash the whole world far below
Your tits, your arse, your cock
I promise I’ll be there with you. Can’t promise I won’t watch

Hollie McNish

Crossing the Bar
By Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

Some interesting suggestions, but that ‘Death is nothing at all’ one is dreadful.
DH said about it ‘Do not for a moment labour under the impression that I will be in the next room. I’ll be dead.‘

I love this and as I live by the Campsies it's even better.

By Terry Pratchett. My friend sent it to me when my Dad died. I found the last line particularly profound

No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence.

http://www.funeralchoices.co.uk/Poems/god%20sends%20his%20love.html

God sends his love (I heard this even at a non religious funeral - very comforting).

I think the overriding message of it is supposed to be that we can honour the dead and keep their memory alive by speaking openly, and with humour, joking about things they did and remembering with laughter the times we had together, as though they are just away on a trip, rather than in only mourning their loss. A good friend had it read at her funeral, and I know exactly what she wanted us to infer from it.

Exactly. How rude and classless to call a funeral reading that clearly means a lot to some people “dreadful”. There are certain ones that are not to my personal taste but I appreciate how meaningful and comforting they are to others.