to all the cultured MNetter out there

[PippiLangstrump]

I need your help ... do you know a good poem or piece of literature that could be read during my FIL's funeral? nothing cheesy

I have got some from Raymond Carver but want to give some choice to DH and SIL.

thanks a lot, it'll mean a lot to us.

Happy the Man by John Dryden

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say.
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

I really like this as a very non-cheesy poem which celebrates life. I hope that you find something suitable and I hope that you and your family are ok.

So sorry for your loss, Pippi and for your dh and his sister. I love this, esp the line about our particular sunset.

Extract from "Wherever You Go" by Gregory Norbert O.S.B. (He is a Benedictine Monk)

I want to say something to all of you who have become a part of the fabric of my life.
The color and texture which you have brought into my being have become a song, and I want to sing it forever.
There is an energy in us which makes things happen when the paths of other persons touch ours.
And we have to be there, and let it happen.
When the time of our particular sunset comes our thing, our accomplishment won't really matter a great deal.
But the clarity and care with which we have loved others will speak with vitality of the great gift of life we have been for each other.

Copyright The Benedictine Foundation of the State of Vermont

I also really like Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh (although the poet herself now hates it!) I think it celebrates life, especially that of a good man.

Sometimes

Sometimes things don't go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.

A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.

Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.

-- Sheenagh Pugh

Wilbur

I really liked the first one.

Oh I like that LL.

thank you all. They are beautiful. I'll pass them on DH tonight...

bump (for the post bedtime routine ones)

Further bump

I like this one...

He is Gone

You can shed tears that he is gone,
Or you can smile because he lived,
You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back,
Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see him
Or you can be full of the love that you shared,
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember him and only that he is gone
Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on,
You can cry and close your mind be empty and turn your back,
Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes,
love and go on.

Funeral Blues
Wystan Hugh Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crépe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song,
I thought that love would last forever: 'I was wrong'

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

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 always 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 in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of 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.
Nothing is past; 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!

Canon Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St Paul's Cathedral

This one does have a religious context but ht sentiment is nice I think:

I?m Free
Don?t grieve for me, for now I?m free
I?m following the path God has laid you see.
I took His hand when I heard him call
I turned my back and left it all.

I could not stay another day
To laugh, to love, to work, to play.
Tasks left undone must stay that way
I found that peace at the close of day.

If my parting has left a void
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss
Oh yes, these things I too will miss.
Be not burdened with times of sorrow
I wish you the sunshine of tomorrow.
My life?s been full, I savored much
Good friends, good times, a loved one?s touch.
Perhaps my time seemed all too brief
Don?t lengthen it now with undue grief.
Lift up your hearts and peace to thee
God wanted me now; He set me free.
Author: Unknown

Remember
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 plann'd:
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 Rossetti

I'm free should have a break between each 4 lines - sorry, the cut and paste function did something.

So sorry for your family's loss. x

This is one of my favourites...

What is Dying

A Ship sails and I stand
watching till she fades on the
horizon and someone at my side says
"She is gone"
Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all; she is just as large as when I saw her.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her, and just as the moment when someone at my side says

"She is gone", there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout,

"There she comes!"

and that is dying..

Bishop Brent

My Personal favourite for this kind of thing is Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar".

So sorry for your loss.

Crossing the Bar

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 though 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 crossed the bar.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

John Donne.

My favourite, very personal to me, and the last verse just makes me ball!

Safely Home

I am home in Heaven, dear ones;
Oh, so happy and so bright!
There is perfect joy and beauty
In this everlasting light.

All the pain and grief is over,
Every restless tossing passed;
I am now at peace forever,
Safely home in Heaven at last.

Did you wonder I so calmly
Trod the valley of the shade?
Oh! but Jesus' love illuminated
Every dark and fearful glade.

And He came Himself to meet me
In that way so hard to tread,
And with Jesus' arm to lean on,
Could I have one doubt or dread?

Then you must not grieve so sorely,
For I love you dearly still:
Try to look beyound earth's shadows,
Pray to trust our Father's Will.

There is work still waiting for you,
So you must not idly stand;
Do it now while life remaineth
You shall rest in Jesus' land.

When that work is all completed,
He will gently call you Home;
Oh, the rapture of that meeting,
Oh, the joy to see you come!..

Pippi, so sorry for you and your family's loss. I have to confess that I first read this on MN so can't claim it as my own find, but I think that it's beautiful.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

I like this one by Thomas Hardy called Heredity:

I am the family face;
Flesh Perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through times to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.

The years-heired features that can
in curve and voice and eye
Despise the human span
Of Durance - that is I;
The eternal thing in man,
That heeds no call to die.

Also there are a couple of lovely Christina Rossetti poems, one called Song and the other Remember, which are good for readings too. Can't remember them though. Hope this helps.

Bjorn Olinder's Pictures

I have learned about dying by looking at two pictures
Bjorn Olinder needed to look at when he was dying:
A girl whose features are obscured by the fall of her hair
Planting a flower,
and a seascape: beyond the headland
A glimpse of immaculate sand that awaits our footprints.

[Michael Longley]

On Walking Backwards

My mother forbade us to walk backwards. That is how the dead walk, she would say. Where did she get this idea? Perhaps from a bad translation. The dead, after all, do not walk backwards but they do walk behind us. They have no lungs and cannot call out but would love for us to turn around. They are victims of love, many of them.

[Anne Carson]

Inside Our Dreams

Where do people go when they die?
Somewhere down below or in the sky?
'I can't be sure', said Grandad, 'but it seems
They simply set up home inside our dreams'.

[Jeanne Willis]