Funeral Poems and Quotations

    

Funeral Poems and Quotations

Poems

"The Parting Glass"

Of all the comrades that e'er I had

They are sorry for my going away

And all the sweethearts that e'er I had

They would wish me one more day to stay

But since it falls unto my lot

That I should rise and you should not

I'll gently rise and I'll softly call

Good night and joy be with you all.

- Irish Traditional

"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

"Death Be Not Proud"

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 souls 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 then 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

"Death"

Before us great Death stands

Our fate held close within his quiet hands.

When with proud joy we lift Life's red wine

To drink deep of the mystic shining cup

And ecstasy through all our being leaps-

Death bows his head and weeps.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Quotations

Only in God is my soul at rest; From Him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold.

- Psalm 61:2-3

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God

is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

- Romans 6:23

To judge the real importance of an individual, we should think of the effect his death would produce.

- Peter de Gaston Levis

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

- Mark Twain

Death ends a life, not a relationship.

- Mitch Albom

When he shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

And pay no worship to the garish sun.

- William Shakespeare

One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.

- Antonio Porchia

To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.

- Thomas Campbell

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

- Kahlil Gibran

Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.

- Dylan Thomas

It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.

- Thomas Mann

I held her close for only a short time, but after she was gone, I'd see her smile on the face of a perfect stranger and I knew she would be there with me all the rest of my days.

- Brian Andreas

And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief.

- William Cullen Bryant

If we have been pleased with life,

we should not be displeased with death,

since it comes from the hand of the same master.

- Michelangelo

Pulvis et umbra sumus. (We are but dust and shadow.)

- Horace

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