Anniversary of death poem needed.

[ButtonMoon]

I need a short poem that would be suitable please....any ideas?

I very much like Death is nothing at all. I know it's used a lot but I still like it.

Death is nothing at all

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 still are.
Call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way
which you always used,
put no difference in your tone,
wear no forced air
of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we shared together.
Let my name ever be
the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all
that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is unbroken continuity.
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.

Henry Scott Holland
1847 -1918

What a lovely poem WWW - i have never heard that before

That's really beautiful....any more ideas anyone?

thats the one i was coming on to type out! good on you www - its such a lovely poem

Or there's this one which I don't like as much. Also very popular but I think because it's comforting. They both are I suppose.

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!
Mary Frye (1932)

Hi,
I have several poems that were sent to after Matthew died, is the poem for a child or an adult? Just a couple here of shorter ones which helped me. The first 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

This one by Christina Rossetti
"Song"
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.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise or set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Hope they may help, they are making me feel sad.

REMEMBER

by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

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.

This is part of another Christina Rossetti (she was good at this, wasn't she?):

She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.
Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.

(The poem is called Dreamland.)

Not a poem, just a phrase:

Grief is the price we pay for love.

ButtonMoon, this poem by Elizabeth Jennings is suitable for a stillborn baby's anniversary (we had it at our son's funeral, as well as Kate's "grief is the price we pay for love")

For a Child Born Dead

What ceremony can we fit
You into now? If you had come
Out of a warm and noisy room
To this, there'd be an opposite
For us to know you by. We could
Imagine you in lively mood

And then look at the other side,
The mood drawn out of you, the breath
Defeated by the power of death.
But we have never seen you stride
Ambitiously the world we know.
You could not come and yet you go.

But there is nothing now to mar
Your clear refusal of our world.
Not in our memories can we mould
You or distort your character.
Then all our consolation is
That grief can be as pure as this.