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Original poster

A memorial poem

39 replies

sykes · 03/09/2003 12:35

Can anyone help with an appropriate poem for a sort of memorial. We lost 17 members of staff in September 11 and send a card every year to family members etc. Have left it horribly late this year and need an appropriate poem/verse - about four/six lines to print in the card. Nothing too sad, slightly uplifting but obviously appropriate to the fact that the people died. Also, not religious as not all were Christian etc. Thanks - I can't think of anything and any literary friends are not around. Shakespear's sonnets??

OP posts:
janh · 03/09/2003 12:44

sykes, this is on the Compassionate Friends site:

All is Well.

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 enjoyed together.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effort, without out 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 out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner.
All is well.......

Henry Scott Holland

it's a bit long but maybe just the last 5/6 lines?

jemw · 03/09/2003 12:50

We read this at my aunties funeral last year...
copied from this link which gives some background
here

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 glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the mornings hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.

Eeek · 03/09/2003 13:12

hi there- we used 'do not stand at my grave and weep' at my son's funeral. I think it's beautiful and it has he advantage of being non-demoninational. everyone welled up as it was read.

for the future you could contact the Humanist Society - they have books full of good stuff for their celebrants to use. I'm sure they could tell you which ones.

HTH

alibubbles · 03/09/2003 13:24

This is another version of the same:
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.

I am the song that will never end.

I am the love of family and friend.

I am the child who has come to rest

In the arms of the Father who knows him best.

When you see the sunset fair,

I am the scented evening air.

I am the joy of a task well done.

I am the glow of the setting sun.

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!

By Mary Frye and Wilbur Skeels

My daughter (then aged 13) read it in church at her great grandmothers funeral, I was so proud as she was so composed, but everyone else cried buckets

Jimjams · 03/09/2003 13:32

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's 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 (1874-1963)

Original poster
sykes · 03/09/2003 13:45

Thanks to all.

OP posts:
princesspeahead · 03/09/2003 13:46

bravo jimjams, I love that poem.
another suggestion - called There is No Death by Richard Dennys, a British WW1 poet.

Come when it may, the stern decree
For me to leave the cheery throng
And quit the sturdy company
Of brothers that I work among.
No need for me to look askance,
Since no regret my prospect mars.
My day was happy ~ and perchance
The coming night is full of stars.

codswallop · 03/09/2003 14:00

My Dad (ex Vicar) feels that the "Death is nothing at all" peom acan stir up mixed feelings for those who feel that it is "A Lot"..IYSWIM

SueW · 03/09/2003 14:04

I vote for Jimjams' poem.

codswallop · 03/09/2003 14:06

I third that. How awful for you. I rember at a wedding shortly afterwards i met a housemistress form a boys private school that had three boys affected in her house.

Original poster
sykes · 03/09/2003 14:13

How about this? Thought last four lines?
Yes it was a terrible time. A particular friend of mine died and never got to see his baby son - his wife had the baby two months later. He was so excited about the baby and had everything to live for. Other colleagues left children behind as well. And, of course, parents, wives, husbands and many other relatives and friends.

They Say
They say
Love grows
When the fear of death
Looms.

They say
Courage looms
When the fear
Of never loving again
Disappears
In the smell of the enemy
Who crushes us so much
We can only fight.

Love and courage grow together
When the flesh is rawest
And the spirit charged.
And distorted within the nightmare
We see the possibility
Of a future.

OP posts:
codswallop · 03/09/2003 14:15

blubathon here, am going to park with my little boys, last day of hols.

codswallop · 03/09/2003 14:16

ps last 4 lines? I preferred the other one.

Original poster
sykes · 03/09/2003 14:17

Sorry. And I think you may be right - it's so difficult and I don't want to offend/upset anyone.

OP posts:
donnie · 03/09/2003 14:18

weep, you may weep;
for you may touch them not.
(W. Owen).

codswallop · 03/09/2003 14:20

not very consoling tho....

ThomCat · 03/09/2003 14:20

I think the last 4 lines of that poem are lovely Sykes and I really like JimJams as well (her poem's not bad either - ! - sorry)
What a lovely thing to do btw - love to you - xx

AliBaba · 03/09/2003 14:39

This might not be very relevant, Sykes, but I work near Grosvenor Square in London (just in front of the US embassy), where they've built a memorial garden for Sept 11th. There are lots of beautiful plants climbing up a pagoda, which has "Grief is the price we pay for love" inscribed across the top. Would this be any good? Bit sanctimonious, maybe.

Original poster
sykes · 03/09/2003 14:56

Thanks. Some of us from here and some of the families have been/will be going to the garden - there's a service there this year, I think.

OP posts:
WideWebWitch · 03/09/2003 15:16

I like 'Death is nothing at all' very much and find it reassuring, but maybe it is a bit long. Jimjams and PPh's are less cliched though. How awful about the man with the unborn baby, mumsnet is so full of tragedy today...

expatkat · 03/09/2003 15:35

Here's the poem that appeared in The New Yorker straight after September 11th. It's by Polish poet Adam Zagejewski. It initially speaks to loss on a world scale, not so much a personal scale, but then it becomes more personal. God it's a good poem. (And he wrote it before Sept. 11th.)

But Jimjams's suggestion of "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is fantastic.

Try To Praise The Mutilated World

by Adam Zagejewski
(Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh)

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
you gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

Original poster
sykes · 03/09/2003 15:46

Thanks. Very powerful. A couple of other directors have now had input and we're not agreeing about anything. It's so subjective and we're terrified of getting it wrong. Thanks to all for help.

OP posts:
lou33 · 03/09/2003 16:15

Alibubbles, we used that at my mum's funeral.

codswallop · 03/09/2003 16:16

let us know the result

janh · 03/09/2003 16:36

I suppose the Remembrance Day words wouldn't do?

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Or one of the last two verses from the same poem ((For the Fallen, by Lawrence Binyon - I didn't even know it was part of a long poem):

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.