Anyone know any good poems to read at a funeral

[alarimer]

They must not begin with "There once was a man from Nantucket.."

[bicentennial_baby]

1. Beautiful and sad....

W. H. 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 crêpe 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 for ever: 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.

[alarimer]

2. That's nice

I am not sure it fits exactly. It's for my grandmother.

[Spacemom]

3. I read the following at my mom's funeral

Robert Frost

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.

Bishop Brent

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 now as when I last saw her. Her diminished size and total loss from my sight is in me, not in her.

And just at that moment, when someone at my side says she is gone, there are others who are watching her coming over their horizon and other voices take up a glad shout - There she comes!

That is what dying is. An horizon and just the limit of our sight.

Lift us up O Lord, that we may see further.

[Tyler Durden]

4. I can't believe you left me again.

Did you really leave me again?
After all the seasons I spent waiting,
watching out the window,
listening at the door,
waiting for the news of your return?

For the news that you realized that someone important was waiting for you?

A whole lifetime I've been waiting.
I can't believe you're not coming back.
I can't believe I'm supposed to stop waiting.
I can't believe you left me again.

It's the poem Katie gets from the boy who's always been madly in love with her, and she reads it as her grandfather's eulogy.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Here's one I heard at a recent funeral

When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

[Bennyboy]

6. Buffalo Bill's Defunct....

Buffalo Bill's
by: e.e. cummings

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus

he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

From "Tulips and Chimneys", 1923
List all poems from "Tulips and Chimneys

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

7. Here's a poetry site - you may find something

http://www.poetry-online.org/poetry-about-death-index.htm

[LoveMyCali]

8. This was read at my mom's funeral

I Am Free

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free.
I'm following the path God laid for me,
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 or play.
Task left undone must stay that way,
I found that place 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,
Ah, 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 heart and share the joy with me,
God wanted me now, HE SET ME FREE!


Mau Mau

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. Not sure who wrote this one:

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not here, 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 rains.

When you waken in the morning hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the stars that shine at night.

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

[alarimer]

10. I've just been informed no one will be doing anything at the service

There will be no eulogy, no one singing or talking about her. Which seems nutty to me because it is supposed to be a celebration of a life. Why not dance a jig or something? Does it have to be so fucking somber?

[Kali]

11. Not very inclusive for the mourners. Sorry

Maybe she left instructions for it to be that way?
Sorry you lost your Grandmother.

[Gormy Cuss]

12. You know what? Have your own ceremony for her.

Design it with her in mind and invite your friends to help you celebrate her life. Nothing says that the formal funeral is the only way to say goodbye.