www.thelightbeyond.com Finding your way around the book

All the poems are arranged in alphabetical order according to title. The only exceptions to this are titles beginning with the words ‘A’, ‘An’ or ‘The’.

‘The Gate Of The Year’, for example, is listed under ‘Gate’.

Hyperlinked table of contents for ease of navigation

The table of contents at the front of Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep is hyperlinked for ease of navigation. Simply click on the title of the poem or reading you require and you will be taken to the relevant page.

Indexes help you find what you are looking for

At the back of the book, you will find the Index Of Authors, Index Of First Lines and Index Of Themes to help you find the perfect poem or reading for your situation.

Copyright

This book has been compiled by Lucie Storrs, the creator of The Light Beyond project. The introduction and compilation are Copyright © 2007 Lucie Storrs.

Some of the poems and readings in this guide are in the public domain. Every effort has been made to contact the rights holders for the others. We are not claiming copyright for these works. However, the remaining text and graphics in Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep are all Copyright © 2007 The Light Beyond.

We gratefully acknowledge permission for the use of copyrighted text starting on page 136, for which the copyright rests with the authors and other rights holders stated in this section. Despite attempts to trace the original author of a resource, there may be instances when we have been unsuccessful or in error. If you find something in this book which is misquoted or misattributed, or if you are an author or interested party of any of the written works displayed in this book and wish for it to be attributed appropriately or removed, please notify us using the Contact page on our site and it will be remedied.

All rights reserved. This book may not be copied, in whole or in part, or transmitted, passed on or in any way given or sold to any third party by any means. Lucie Storrs asserts her right to be identified as the intellectual property holder. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this book, it is a condition of sale that no liability is accepted by the publishers or author for any inaccuracies, errors or omissions.

In plain English: we know that it would be easy for you to simply email a copy of this book to someone else. Please do respect the author’s rights to be compensated for her work. Send those who would like the book to www.thelightbeyond.com so that they can order their own copy. Thank you! www.thelightbeyond.com Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

Foreword ...... 1 A final tribute: writing and delivering a eulogy...... 2 The poems, readings and quotations ...... 4 Abide With Me...... 4 Accepting The Universe...... 5 Address To The Living ...... 5 After I Have Gone ...... 5 Afternoon In February ...... 6 After The Burial ...... 7 Afterwards...... 9 from All Lovely Things...... 9 All The Things He Loved...... 9 All Things Decay And Die ...... 10 from All Things Will Die...... 10 Always Saying Farewell ...... 11 Ashes Of Life ...... 11 As You Love Me...... 12 At A Child’s Grave...... 13 Away ...... 14 The Beauty Of Death ...... 14 Bereavement...... 16 Be Still My Soul...... 17 Be Swift To Love...... 17 The Beyond...... 18 Borrowed Hope ...... 18 Break, Break, Break...... 19 Brief Our Days ...... 19 The Bustle In A House ...... 20 But Not Forgotten...... 20 The Cactus...... 20 Chalice Lighting ...... 21 Clean Is The Autumn Wind ...... 21 The Clock Of Life ...... 21 A Common Destiny ...... 22 The Cost ...... 22 Crossing The Bar ...... 23 from Cymbeline...... 23 The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended...... 24 The Dead ...... 24 Dear Lovely Death ...... 25 Death, Be Not Proud...... 25 Death Cannot Destroy Love...... 25 Death Can Show Us The Way ...... 26 Death Has Taken Thee Too...... 26 Death, In Itself, Is Nothing...... 26 Death Is A Challenge ...... 26 www.thelightbeyond.com Death Is But An Intermission...... 26 Death Is Nothing At All...... 27 Death Stands Above Me ...... 27 Death This Year ...... 27 Desiderata...... 28 A Different Self...... 28 Dirge Without Music...... 29 The Divine Weaver ...... 30 Do Everything For God ...... 30 Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night ...... 31 Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep...... 32 Down, Gently Down ...... 32 Each Person That Has Ever Lived ...... 33 Early This Morning – A Lighter Heart ...... 33 Early Death ...... 34 Eden Rock ...... 34 Elegy...... 35 from An Elegy On The Death Of John Donne...... 35 Epitaph For A Soldier...... 35 Epitaph On A Friend ...... 36 Epitaph Upon A Child That Died ...... 36 Even In Our Sleep...... 36 Evolution ...... 37 Farewell ...... 37 Farewell, Sweet Dust ...... 38 Finis ...... 38 For a Child Born Dead ...... 39 from For The Fallen ...... 39 For Whom The Bell Tolls...... 40 From A Grief Observed...... 40 Funeral Blues...... 41 from The Garden Of Proserpine...... 41 The Gate Of The Year ...... 42 Gestalt At Sixty ...... 42 Give Sorrow Words...... 43 God Be In My Head ...... 43 Good-Night...... 43 Good Night! Good Night!...... 43 A Gravestone ...... 44 The Green Door ...... 44 from Grief...... 45 A Grief Ago ...... 46 Grief Is Inconsolable ...... 47 High Flight...... 47 His Journey’s Just Begun...... 48 Hold Onto What Is Good...... 48 from Hymen ...... 49 I Dreamed Death Came The Other Night...... 49 If All The Skies ...... 49 www.thelightbeyond.com If Death Is Kind ...... 50 If I Should Go Before The Rest Of You...... 50 If We Could Only Know...... 50 from The Iliad ...... 51 I Look To Thee In Every Need ...... 51 I’m Here For A Short Visit Only ...... 51 I’m Thinking That Soon, Maybe, We’ll Meet...... 52 In Deepest Yin ...... 52 In Memory Of You...... 53 In Spring...... 54 In The Midst Of Life...... 54 Into The Darkness We Lay You Down ...... 55 It Is Not Growing Like A Tree...... 55 I Vow To Thee My Country ...... 56 I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto the Hills...... 56 I Will Not Die An Unlived Life ...... 57 Last Lines...... 57 Last Wave...... 59 The Last Year ...... 59 Lead, Kindly Light ...... 60 Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us ...... 61 Let Go When The Time Comes ...... 61 Let Me Die, Working ...... 62 Let Us Endeavor To Live...... 62 Let Us Go Hand In Hand...... 62 Let Us Lead Worthy Lives...... 63 Let Us Offer Them Back...... 63 Life And Death ...... 63 Life Does Not Take Death Seriously ...... 64 Life Is Too Brief...... 64 Life Must Go On...... 64 The Life That I Have ...... 65 Life! We Have Been Long Together...... 65 Like Dew Drops...... 65 A Little Bit Of Me Dies...... 65 A Little Piece Of Lois...... 66 Living In The Heart’s Memory ...... 67 The Lord Is My Shepherd...... 68 Lord Of All Hopefulness ...... 68 Loss ...... 69 Love Is Stronger Than Fear ...... 69 Make Me Brave For Life...... 69 May The Lord Be Close To You...... 70 May The Roads Rise Up To Meet You ...... 70 from Meditations Of The Heart...... 70 The Miracle Of Transformation ...... 71 Miss Me – But Let Me Go...... 71 Mother Earth, Father Sky...... 71 Mourners...... 72 www.thelightbeyond.com Music Of Sorrow ...... 72 My Coming, My Going...... 72 Nature ...... 73 Nearer, My God, To Thee ...... 73 Never Did I Want So Much For You...... 74 A New Quietness Fills our Hearts ...... 75 from The Night ...... 75 No Coward Soul...... 76 No Funeral Gloom...... 77 Non Nobis Tantum Nati...... 77 No Single Thing Abides...... 77 Not, How Did He Die, But How Did He Live? ...... 78 Now Breathe Great Breaths Of Heaven...... 78 Often When The Heart Is Torn With Sorrow ...... 79 O God, Our Help In Ages Past...... 80 O God, Whose Ways Are Hidden ...... 81 O Help Us To Think Wisely ...... 81 Old Age Flowing Free ...... 81 O May I Join The Choir Invisible ...... 82 On Dying...... 83 One Equal Eternity...... 83 One Man’s Life...... 83 One Person...... 84 Only A Little While...... 84 On Pain...... 84 from On The Beach At Night ...... 84 On The Death Of A Child ...... 85 On The World...... 85 O Still Small Voice Of Calm ...... 85 Our Revels Now Are Ended ...... 86 Our Spirit Of Resistance ...... 86 Out Of Sorrow Comes Understanding ...... 86 The Overcoming Of Suffering ...... 86 The Parting Glass ...... 87 A Parting Guest...... 87 A Perfect Day...... 88 The Plants Who Teach Me All I Know...... 88 A Poem For My Friend Whose Mother Is Near Death...... 89 Praise Of A Man...... 90 Prayer For A Baby Who Died...... 91 Prayer For All Occasions ...... 92 Prayer For A Memorial Service ...... 92 Prayer For Peace...... 93 Prayer For Those Who Have Committed Suicide ...... 93 Prayer For Those Who Mourn...... 93 A Psalm Of Life ...... 94 from Rebecca...... 95 Remarkable...... 95 Remember Me When I Am Gone Away ...... 96 www.thelightbeyond.com Remembrance ...... 97 Requiem...... 98 A Return To Eternity ...... 98 Rise Up Slowly, Angel...... 99 from Romeo and Juliet...... 100 Save Me, O God ...... 100 Separated By The Thinnest of Veils...... 101 from Set In Stone ...... 101 She Is Gone ...... 102 She Speaks Of Death ...... 102 Sixty-Eighth Birthday...... 103 The Slow Wisdom Of Grief...... 103 The Soldier...... 104 So Many Different Lengths Of Time...... 105 Some Things Will Never Change ...... 106 A Song Of Living ...... 107 Song Of The River ...... 108 Sonnet 30...... 109 from Sonnets From The Portuguese...... 109 Sonnet To Rupert Brooke ...... 110 Sorrow...... 110 Sorrow Must Be Lived With...... 111 Stars, Songs, Faces...... 111 Stars Whose Light Shines...... 111 Streaks...... 112 Sudden Death And The To Do List ...... 112 from Surviving Death ...... 113 Take All The Risk Of Life ...... 113 Talking To Grief ...... 114 Testament...... 115 There Is No Death...... 115 They Softly Walk ...... 116 This Existence Of Ours ...... 116 Those Who Are Gone You Love ...... 117 A Thought On Death ...... 117 Thoughts That Lie Too Deep For Tears...... 118 from Threnody...... 118 Time And Grief...... 118 Time Does Not Bring Relief...... 119 A Time Of Thanksgiving...... 119 To All Parents ...... 120 To Everything There Is A Season ...... 120 To Joy ...... 121 To Live And Bravely Fight...... 121 To Those I Love ...... 122 Toward Union With A Greater Wholeness ...... 122 from To W. P...... 123 Transfiguration ...... 124 The Trees...... 125 www.thelightbeyond.com Turn Again To Life ...... 125 The Turning Hour Of Life ...... 125 A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning ...... 126 Vitae Summa Brevis ...... 127 We Bereaved Are Not Alone...... 127 We Cannot Judge ...... 127 We Grow Accustomed To The Dark ...... 128 The Well Of Grief ...... 128 We Need Not Fear The Coming Of The Dark ...... 129 We Will Grieve Not...... 129 What Is It To Die? ...... 130 What Will You Give? ...... 130 When I Am Dead, My Dearest ...... 130 When I Die ...... 131 When I Die And Leave Behind ...... 132 from When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’d...... 133 When My Hour Is Come...... 134 When We Finally Know We Are Dying...... 134 The Widower...... 135 Youth And Age...... 135 Submit poems and readings...... 136 Credits ...... 136 Index of authors...... 140 Index of first lines...... 144 Index of themes ...... 149 How else can we help you? ...... 152

My soul has wings, and in its freedom sings…

www.thelightbeyond.com

Foreword

Throughout my own experiences of loss and bereavement, I’ve found tremendous comfort in the written word. When one is trying to make sense of it all, and sometimes failing, the right words have a wonderful ability to soothe the soul.

In creating Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep, I envisioned that the timeless wisdom, inspiration, healing and hope conveyed in the words that make up this book would bring that same comfort to others.

Each of the poems, readings and inspirational quotes contained in Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep eloquently describes grief as experienced by some of the greatest poets, sages, and writers of all time. The feelings, thoughts, and beliefs recorded in this volume are as unique as the time, location and circumstances in which each writer lived. Yet throughout the book, universal themes wind their way in and out, allowing the reader to discover in each work a chapter from his or her own story.

You may find that the shock, rage and despair that bereavement brings can give rise to ‘thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears’, as Wordsworth expressed so gracefully. Reading the thoughts of others, gaining an insight into their emotions and identifying with their reactions to the loss of a loved one can be an immensely cathartic experience, allowing one’s deepest thoughts and feelings to surface. If tears come, then, as you read this book, let them flow freely. Do not deny your grief…

My work on The Light Beyond has reminded me to see death as the natural part of life it is. Death, the great leveler, comes to us all. I also learned a paradoxical truth: while grief is universal, the experience of grief is unique to each mourner and unique to each loss.

In Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep, may you find wisdom and truth that speak to you in each of your losses. May you find spiritual insight to build your faith. May you find a reminder that we are all connected in our grief, and there is healing in that connection. May you find understanding that you are not alone in your feelings.

Above all, may you find comfort, strength, and hope within these pages.

We are truly sorry for your loss.

Lucie Storrs Creator of The Light Beyond

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A final tribute: writing and delivering a eulogy

No one’s death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humanness.

Hermann Broch (1886-1951)

Central to the funeral and concluding the public grieving period following a death is the eulogy, a funeral speech about the person who died. The purpose of the eulogy is to pay tribute to the deceased as a distinct individual, with unique talents and gifts, who will live on in the memories of the people who loved him. The eulogy allows family and friends to say goodbye to their loved one and acknowledge the gift they shared in being touched by his life.

Although being asked to give a eulogy is truly an honor, if you’re the one who’s been chosen, you may find yourself feeling anxious about the task before you. Perhaps you’re not accustomed to public speaking, and the mere thought of speaking in front of a crowd makes you nervous. Or maybe you’re unsure of your ability to manage your emotions as you share your memories of your loved one.

While such responses are fairly common, there’s really no cause for worry. The audience for your funeral speech couldn’t be more sympathetic and welcoming, and your deep feelings for the person who died will make the eulogy powerful. You won’t be expected to express the thoughts and feelings of everyone present, nor to give a detailed account of the life of the deceased. All you have to do is write and talk from your heart, and let your audience identify with your memories and emotions.

A word about content

The most defining characteristic of a good eulogy is that it is personal. Include in your eulogy the memories and anecdotes that best describe the deceased from your perspective.

Try to avoid talking about the details of the death, and focus instead on the life of the deceased. Acknowledge the important people and achievements in his life. If you find meaning in a poem, reading, or quote that reminds you of your loved one, consider sharing it in your eulogy.

Should you include humor?

People often wonder whether it’s proper to include humor in a eulogy. Humor in good taste relieves stress and anxiety, and it’s almost certain to be welcomed by the funeral guests. Think about your favorite memories of the people you love – chances are many of those memories are based on funny events. Be sure, though, not to include anything that may offend or embarrass. If you have any doubt about a particular story you’d like to share, get the honest opinion of someone else who is close to the family.

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The following tips will guide you through the process of writing and delivering the eulogy.

Writing the eulogy

• Focus. Don’t let worry about delivering the eulogy interfere with writing it. Let go of your fear for now, and focus on the life of the person who died and what you want to tell friends and family about her. • Reflect. Before you start to write, choose a setting that is conducive to creative thought, such as a park or a candlelit room, and take a half-hour to reflect on your loved one. • Capture your thoughts. Freely jot down your thoughts, memories, stories, and feelings. Don’t censor yourself at this point. • Seek inspiration. Listening to music or looking at pictures can bring a flood of ideas. Inspirational quotes and sympathy poems may spark creative thought or provide material to share in your eulogy. Ask others to share their favorite memories of the deceased with you. • Draft. Write the eulogy from start to finish. Remember, this is a draft – let your ideas flow. Then walk away from your work for at least a couple of hours. • Polish and edit. Review your work. Read the eulogy aloud to yourself. Listen to how your ideas flow, and correct any awkward construction. Also, look for opportunities to use more precise, descriptive words to convey your thoughts and feelings.

Delivering the eulogy

• Get feedback. Have someone else listen as you read the eulogy two or three times. The first time, ask for feedback, then read the eulogy again after revising. Being prepared is one of the most effective ways to alleviate anxiety. • Relax and deliver the eulogy. Talk to your audience as if you were all seated in your living room. If you feel nervous at first, stop and take a deep breath. Likewise, if you find yourself overcome by emotion, take a moment to compose yourself. Try to make eye contact with your audience.

Your eulogy is a loving gift to your fellow mourners, and it will be remembered by many for years to come. By sharing your honest, heart-felt thoughts and memories about your friend or family member who died, you will help to begin the process of healing that lies ahead for the living.

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The poems, readings and quotations

Abide With Me

Abide with me! fast falls the eventide, The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide. When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away; Change and decay in all around I see: O Thou, who changest not, abide with me.

Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word; But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord, Familiar, condescending, patient, free. Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.

Come not in terrors, as the King of kings, But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings, Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea – Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile; And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile, Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee, On to the close, O Lord, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power? Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness. Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold then Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies. Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee; In life and death, O Lord, abide with me.

Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847)

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Accepting The Universe

The laws of life and death are as they should be; and if death ends my consciousness, still is death good. I have had life on those terms, and somewhere, somehow, the course of nature is justified.

I shall not be imprisoned in some grave where you are to bury my remains. I shall be diffused in great nature: in the soil, in the air, in the water and sunshine, and in the hearts of those who love me, in all the living and flowing currents of the world, though I may never again in my entirety be embodied in a single human being. My elements and my forces go back into the original sources out of which they came, and these sources are perennial in this vast, wonderful, divine cosmos.

John Burroughs (1837-1921)

Address To The Living

We live, we are elected now by time, Few out of many not yet come to birth, And many dead, to use the daylight now, To stand up under the sun upon the earth.

Then break the silence with a voice of praise; Open the door that opens toward the sky; Press mind and body hard against this world, Before we fall asleep, before we die.

John Holmes (1904-1962)

After I Have Gone

Speak my name softly after I have gone. I loved the quiet things, the flowers and the dew, Field mice; birds homing; and the frost that shone On nursery windows when my years were few; And autumn mists subduing hill and plain And blurring outlines of those older moods That follow, after loss and grief and pain – And last and best, a gentle laugh with friends, All bitterness foregone, and evening near.

If we be kind and faithful when day ends, We shall not meet that ragged starveling ‘fear’ As one by one we take the unknown way – Speak my name softly – there’s no more to say –

Vera Arlett (1896-1948) www.thelightbeyond.com 5

Afternoon In February

The day is ending, The night is descending; The marsh is frozen, The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes The red sun flashes On village windows That glimmer red.

The snow recommences; The buried fences Mark no longer The road o’er the plain;

While through the meadows, Like fearful shadows, Slowly passes A funeral train.

The bell is pealing, And every feeling Within me responds To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing, My heart is bewailing And tolling within Like a funeral bell.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

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After The Burial

Yes, faith is a goodly anchor; When skies are sweet as a psalm, At the bows it lolls so stalwart, In its bluff, broad-shouldered calm.

And when over breakers to leeward The tattered surges are hurled, It may keep our head to the tempest, With its grip on the base of the world.

But, after the shipwreck, tell me What help in its iron thews, Still true to the broken hawser, Deep down among sea-weed and ooze?

In the breaking gulfs of sorrow, When the helpless feet stretch out And find in the deeps of darkness No footing so solid as doubt,

Then better one spar of Memory, One broken plank of the Past, That our human heart may cling to, Though hopeless of shore at last!

To the spirit its splendid conjectures, To the flesh its sweet despair, Its tears o’er the thin-worn locket With its anguish of deathless hair!

Immortal? I feel it and know it, Who doubts it of such as she? But that is the pang’s very secret, – Immortal away from me.

There’s a narrow ridge in the graveyard Would scarce stay a child in his race, But to me and my thought it is wider Than the star-sown vague of Space.

Your logic, my friend, is perfect, Your moral most drearily true; But, since the earth clashed on her coffin, I keep hearing that, and not you.

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Console if you will, I can bear it; ’Tis a well-meant alms of breath; But not all the preaching since Adam Has made Death other than Death.

It is pagan; but wait till you feel it, – That jar of our earth, that dull shock When the ploughshare of deeper passion Tears down to our primitive rock.

Communion in spirit! Forgive me, But I, who am earthly and weak, Would give all my incomes from dream-land For a touch of her hand on my cheek.

That little shoe in the corner, So worn and wrinkled and brown, With its emptiness confutes you, And argues your wisdom down.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

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Afterwards

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbors say, ‘He was a man who used to notice such things’?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid’s soundless blink, The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think, ‘To him this must have been a familiar sight.’

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm, When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, One may say, ‘He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.’

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees, Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more, ‘He was one who had an eye for such mysteries’?

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom, And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings, Till they rise again, as they were a new bell’s boom, ‘He hears it not now, but used to notice such things’?

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

from All Lovely Things

All lovely things will have an ending, All lovely things will fade and die.

Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)

All The Things He Loved

My grief, I find, is not desolation or rebellion at universal law or deity. I find grief to be much simpler and sadder…

All the things he loved tear at my heart because he is no longer here on earth to enjoy them.

Frances Gunther (1897-1964)

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All Things Decay And Die

All things decay with time: the forest sees The growth and down-fall of her aged trees; That timber tall, which three-score lustres stood The proud dictator of the state-like wood, I mean the sovereign of all plants, the oak, Droops, dies, and falls without the cleaver’s stroke.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

from All Things Will Die

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing Under my eye;

Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing Over the sky.

One after another the white clouds are fleeting; Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating Full merrily; Yet all things must die.

The stream will cease to flow; The wind will cease to blow; The clouds will cease to fleet; The heart will cease to beat; For all things must die. All things must die.

Nine times goes the passing bell: Ye merry souls, farewell. The old earth Had a birth, As all men know, Long ago. And the old earth must die. So let the warm winds range, And the blue wave beat the shore; For even and morn Ye will never see Thro’ eternity. All things were born. Ye will come never more, For all things must die.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) www.thelightbeyond.com 10

Always Saying Farewell

We are always saying farewell in this world, always standing at the edge of a loss, attempting to retrieve some human meaning from the silence, something which was precious and is gone.

Adlai Stevenson (1835-1914)

Ashes Of Life

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike; Eat I must, and sleep I will, – and would that night were here! But ah! – to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike! Would that it were day again! – with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do; This or that or what you will is all the same to me; – But all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through, – There’s little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, and the neighbors knock and borrow, And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow There’s this little street and this little house.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

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As You Love Me

As you love me, let there be No mourning when I go, No tearful eyes, No hopeless sighs, No woe, – nor even sadness! Indeed I would not have you sad, For I myself shall be full glad, With the high triumphant gladness Of a soul made free Of God’s sweet liberty.

No windows darkened; For my own Will be flung wide, as ne’er before, To catch the radiant inpour Of Love that shall in full atone For all the ills that I have done; And the good things left undone;

No voices hushed; My own, full-flushed With an immortal hope, will rise In ecstasies of new-born bliss And joyful melodies. Rather, of your sweet courtesy, Rejoice with me At my soul’s loosing from captivity.

Wish me “Bon Voyage!” As you do a friend Whose joyous visit finds its happy end. And bid me both “adieu!” And “au revoir!”

Since, though I come no more, I shall be waiting there to greet you, At His Door. And, as the feet of The Bearers tread The ways I trod, Think not of me as dead, But rather – “Happy, thrice happy, he whose course is sped! He has gone home – to God, His Father!”

John Oxenham (1852-1941) www.thelightbeyond.com 12

At A Child’s Grave

I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in this world, where life and death are equal things, all should be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met…

Why should we fear that which will come to all that is?

We cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater blessing – life or death. We do not know whether the grave is the end of this life, or the door of another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else at dawn. Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate – the child dying in its mother’s arms, before its lips have learned to form a word, or he who journeys all the length of life’s uneven road, painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch.

Every cradle asks us, “Whence?” and every coffin, “Whither?” The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions as intelligently as the robed priest of the most authentic creed.

No man, standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears. It may be that death gives all there is of worth to life. If those we press and strain against our hearts could never die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. Maybe this common fate treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate, and I would rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not.

The dead do not suffer. And if they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: help for the living, hope for the dead.

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)

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Away

I cannot say and I will not say That she is dead, she is just away, With a cheery smile and a wave of hand She has wandered into an unknown land And left us dreaming how very fair Its needs must be, since she lingers there.

And you, oh you, who the wildest yearn From the old time steps and the glad return Think of her faring on, as dear, in the love of there, as the love of here Think of her still the same I say, She is not dead, she is just away.

James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)

The Beauty Of Death

Part One – The Calling

Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love and Let me rest, for my spirit has had its bounty of days and nights; Light the candles and burn the incense around my bed, and Scatter leaves of jasmine and roses over my body; Embalm my hair with frankincense and sprinkle my feet with perfume, And read what the hand of Death has written on my forehead. Let me rest in the arms of Slumber, for my open eyes are tired; Let the silver-stringed lyre quiver and soothe my spirit; Weave from the harp and lute a veil around my withering heart.

Sing of the past as you behold the dawn of hope in my eyes, for Its magic meaning is a soft bed upon which my heart rests. Dry your tears, my friends, and raise your heads as the flowers Raise their crowns to greet the dawn. Look at the bride of Death standing like a column of light Between my bed and the infinite; Hold your breath and listen with me to the beckoning rustle of Her white wings.

Come close and bid me farewell; touch my eyes with smiling lips. Let the children grasp my hands with soft and rosy fingers; Let the ages place their veined hands upon my head and bless me; Let the virgins come close and see the shadow of God in my eyes, And hear the echo of His will racing with my breath.

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Part Two – The Ascending

I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the Firmament of complete and unbound freedom; I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are Hiding the hills from my eyes.

The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the Hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses; The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter That looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight And red as the twilight.

The songs of the waves and the hymns of the streams Are scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence; And I can hear naught but the music of Eternity In exact harmony with the spirit’s desires.

I am cloaked in full whiteness; I am in comfort; I am in peace.

Part Three – The Remains

Unwrap me from this white linen shroud and clothe me With leaves of jasmine and lilies; Take my body from the ivory casket and let it rest Upon pillows of orange blossoms.

Lament me not, but sing songs of youth and joy; Shed not tears upon me, but sing of harvest and the winepress; Utter no sigh of agony, but draw upon my face with your Finger the symbol of Love and Joy.

Disturb not the air’s tranquility with chanting and requiems, But let your hearts sing with me the song of Eternal Life; Mourn me not with apparel of black, But dress in color and rejoice with me; Talk not of my departure with sighs in your hearts; close Your eyes and you will see me with you forevermore.

Place me upon clusters of leaves and Carry me upon your friendly shoulders and Walk slowly to the deserted forest. Take me not to the crowded burying ground lest my slumber Be disrupted by the rattling of bones and skulls.

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Carry me to the cypress woods and dig my grave where violets And poppies grow not in the other’s shadow; Let my grave be deep so that the flood will not Carry my bones to the open valley; Let my grave be wide, so that the twilight shadows Will come and sit by me.

Take from me all earthly raiment and place me deep in my Mother Earth; and place me with care upon my mother’s breast. Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed With seeds of jasmine, lilies and myrtle; and when they Grow above me, and thrive on my body’s element they will Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space; And reveal even to the sun the secret of my peace; And sail with the breeze and comfort the wayfarer.

Leave me then, friends – leave me and depart on mute feet, As the silence walks in the deserted valley; Leave me to God and disperse yourselves slowly, as the almond And apple blossoms disperse under the vibration of Nisan’s breeze. Go back to the joy of your dwellings and you will find there That which Death cannot remove from you and me. Leave with peace, for what you see here is far away in meaning From the earthly world. Leave me.

Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

Bereavement

What is it, when we mourn and grieve and cry For those we loved, and love – now passed away – That gives our pain such brute totality; So vital, that we almost love that pain (Our faces sometimes radiant in grief…), Unwilling to let go pain’s absolute, Since there hides knowledge deeper than belief Of that sole absolute itself, the root Of all our being, oneness that we share With those with whom we sought our selves to prove? That pain, which barely differs from a prayer To know – by suffering deepest hurt of love: Yes! Let us dive into that holy deep Of total grief and love: then, can self weep?

Michael Shepherd (1929- )

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Be Still My Soul

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide; In every change, He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end. Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake To guide the future, as He has the past. Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake; All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below. Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart, And all is darkened in the vale of tears, Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart, Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.

Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay, From His own fullness, all He takes away. Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on When we shall be forever with the Lord. When disappointment, grief and fear are gone, Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored. Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high; Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways, So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye. Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

Katharina Amalia von Schlegel (1697-1768)

Be Swift To Love

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!

Henri Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881)

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The Beyond

It seemeth such a little way to me, Across to that strange country, the Beyond; And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be The home of those of whom I am so fond; They make it seem familiar and most dear, As journeying friends bring distant countries near.

And so for me there is no sting to death, And so the grave has lost its victory; It is but crossing with abated breath And white, set face, a little strip of sea, To find the loved ones waiting on the shore, More beautiful, more precious than before.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919)

Borrowed Hope

Lend me your hope for a while, I seem to have mislaid mine. Lost and hopeless feelings accompany me daily. Pain and confusion are my companions. I know not where to turn. Looking ahead to the future times Does not bring forth images of renewed hope. I see mirthless times, pain-filled days, and more tragedy. Lend me your hope for a while, I seem to have mislaid mine. Hold my hand and hug me, Listen to all my ramblings.

I need to unleash the pain and let it tumble out. Recovery seems so far and distant, The road to healing, a long and lonely one. Stand by me. Offer me your presence, Your ears and your love.

Acknowledge my pain, it is so real and ever present. I am overwhelmed with sad and conflicting thoughts. Lend me your hope for a while. A time will come when I will heal, And I will lend my renewed hope to others.

Eloise Cole (unknown-2005)

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Break, Break, Break

Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O, well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Brief Our Days

Brief our days, but long for singing, When to sing is made our call. For a million stars now flinging Light upon this earthly ball.

In a setting of what splendor Are we given chance to render Tribute for the whirling sky Where we live and where we die.

Kenneth Patton (1911-1994)

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The Bustle In A House

The bustle in a house The morning after death Is solemnest of industries Enacted upon earth.

The sweeping up the heart And putting love away We shall not want to use again Until eternity.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

But Not Forgotten

I think no matter where you stray, That I shall go with you a way. Though you may wander sweeter lands, You will not forget my hands, Nor yet the way I held my head Nor the tremulous things I said.

You will still see me, small and white And smiling, in the secret night, And feel my arms about you when The day comes fluttering back again.

I think, no matter where you be, You’ll hold me in your memory And keep my image there without me, By telling later loves about me.

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

The Cactus

The scarlet flower, with never a sister leaf, Stemless, springs from the edge of the cactus thorn: Thus from the ragged wounds of desperate grief A beautiful thought, perfect and pure, is born.

Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Nicolson) (1865-1904)

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Chalice Lighting

“Let there be light!“ Let it shine in dark places, in moments of pain, in times of grief, in the darkness of hatred, violence, oppression, where there is discouragement and despair.

Wherever darkness is to be put to flight, “Let there be light!”

Gordon B. McKeeman (1920- )

Clean Is The Autumn Wind

Clean is the autumn wind, Splendid the autumn moon, The blown leaves are heaped and scattered, The ice-cold raven starts from its roost. Dreaming of you – when shall I see you again? On this night sorrow fills my heart.

Li Po (701-762)

The Clock Of Life

The clock of life is wound but once And no man has the power, To tell just when the hands will stop At late or early hour.

The present only is our own, So live, love, toil with a will, Place no faith in “Tomorrow,” For the Clock may then be still.

Robert H. Smith (dates unknown)

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A Common Destiny

All living substance, all substance of energy, being, and purpose, are united and share the same destiny.

All people, those we love and those we know not of, are united and share the same destiny.

Birth-to-death we share this unity with the sun, earth, our brothers and sisters, strangers, flowers of the field, snowflakes, volcanoes and moon beams.

Birth – Life – Death Unknown – Known – Unknown.

May we have the faith to accept this wonderful mystery and build upon its everlasting truth.

David Eaton (1932-1992)

The Cost

Death is not too high a price to pay for having lived. Mountains never die, nor do the seas or rocks or endless sky.

Through countless centuries of time, they stay eternal, deathless. Yet they never live!

If choice there were, I would not hesitate to choose mortality. Whatever Fate demanded in return for life I’d give, for, never to have seen the fertile plains nor heard the winds nor felt the warm sun on sands beside the salty sea, nor touched the hands of those I love – without these, all the gains of timelessness would not be worth one day of living and of loving; come what may.

Dorothy N. Monroe (dates unknown) www.thelightbeyond.com 22

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 tho’ 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 crost the bar.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

from Cymbeline

Act IV, Scene II

Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

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The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended

The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended, The darkness falls at Thy behest; To Thee our morning hymns ascended, Thy praise shall sanctify our rest.

We thank Thee that thy Church, unsleeping While earth rolls onward into light, Through all the world her watch is keeping And rests not now by day nor night.

As o’er each continent and island The dawn leads on another day, The voice of prayer is never silent, Nor dies the strain of praise away.

The sun that bids us rest is waking Our brethren ’neath the western sky, And hour by hour fresh lips are making Thy wondrous doings heard on high.

So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall never, Like earth’s proud empires, pass away; Thy kingdom stands, and grows for ever, Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.

John Ellerton (1826-1893)

The Dead

How great unto the living seem the dead! How sacred, solemn; how heroic grown; How vast and vague, as they obscurely tread The shadowy confines of the dim unknown! – For they have met the monster that we dread, Have learned the secret not to mortal shown.

E’en as gigantic shadows on the wall The spirit of the daunted child amaze, So on us thoughts of the departed fall, And with phantasma fill our gloomy gaze.

Awe and deep wonder lend the living lines, And hope and ecstasy the borrowed beams; While fitful fancy the full form divines, And all is what imagination dreams.

Charles Heavysege (1816-1876) www.thelightbeyond.com 24

Dear Lovely Death

Dear lovely Death, That taketh all things under wing – Never to kill – Only to change Into some other thing This suffering flesh To make it either more or less, But not again the same – Dear lovely Death, Change is thy other name.

Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

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 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 (1572-1631)

Death Cannot Destroy Love

Of course no one can help the suffering which comes in bereavement. Indeed, who would escape it if he could? It is the one means left to us by which to declare the reality and depth of our love for the one taken. Were there no pain it would mean there had been no love or too little love. Go on unanxiously with the glad knowledge that you and yours are tied by a bond against which death is as powerless as a cloud to extinguish the sun or a hammer to destroy a moonbeam.

Charles H. Brent (1863-1929)

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Death Can Show Us The Way

Death can show us the way, for when we know and understand completely that our time on this earth is limited, and that we have no way of knowing when it will be over, then we must live each day as if it were the only one we had.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926-2004)

Death Has Taken Thee Too

Death has taken thee too, and thou hast the dew of thy youth. He has placed thee on his bosom, and his stern countenance wears a smile. The far country toward which we journey seems nearer to us, and the way less dark, for thou hast gone before, passing so quietly to thy rest, that day itself dies not more calmly.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Death, In Itself, Is Nothing

Death, in itself, is nothing; but we fear, To be we know not what, we know not where.

John Dryden (1631-1700)

Death Is A Challenge

Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time... It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.

Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998)

Death Is But An Intermission

Death, of which we so much fear, and from which we shrink, is but an intermission of life, and not its destruction.

Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD)

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Death Is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which 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 that we 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 an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity… Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before – only better, infinitely happier and forever – we will all be one together in Christ.

Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)

Death Stands Above Me

Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear; Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)

Death This Year

Death this year has taken men Whose kind we shall not see again. Pride and skill and friendliness, Wrath and wisdom and delight, Are shining still, but shining less, And clouded to the common sight. Time will show them clear again.

Time will give us other men With names to write in burning gold When they are great and we are old, But these were royal-hearted, rare. Memory keeps with loving care Deeds they did and tales they told. But living men are hard to spare.

John Holmes (1904-1962) www.thelightbeyond.com 27

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is: many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself; especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann (1872-1945)

A Different Self

Most people, though, manage to make their way through the painful stages of grief and eventually regain their emotional balance. What they need desperately are caring friends and relatives who allow them to grieve in their own way, at their own pace and who, above all, will not insist that they act like their “old selves.” For no one who has suffered a terrible loss will ever be her old self again. She may be a different self or even a better self, but she will never regain the identity that was untouched by grief.

Susan Jacoby (1945- )

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Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go, but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains, but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

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The Divine Weaver

A man’s life is laid in a loom of time To a pattern he does not see. While the Weaver works and the shuttles fly Till the end of eternity.

Some shuttles are filled with silver thread, And some with threads of gold; While often but the darker hue Is all that they may hold. But the weaver watches with skilful eye Each shuttle fly to and fro, And sees the pattern so deftly wrought As the loom works sure and slow.

God surely planned that pattern Each thread – the dark and the fair – Was chosen by his master skill And placed in the web with care. He only knows the beauty And guides the shuttles which hold The threads so unattractive As well as the threads of gold.

Not till the loom is silent. And the shuttles cease to fly Shall God unroll the pattern And explain the reason why The dark threads are as needful In the weaver’s skilful hand, As the threads of gold and silver In the pattern he had planned.

Author unknown

Do Everything For God

Do everything for God, uniting yourself to Him by a mere upward glance, or by the overflowing of your heart towards Him. Never be in a hurry… Do not lose your inward peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. Commend all to God, and then lie still and be at rest… Whatever happens, abide steadfast in a determination to cling simply to God, trusting to His eternal love for you; and if you find that you have wandered forth from this shelter, recall your heart quietly and simply.

Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)

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Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)

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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’s rain.

Do not stand at my grave and mourn. I am the dew-flecked grass at dawn. Where tranquil oceans meet the land I am the footprints in the sand To guide you through the weary day. I am still here; I’ll always stay.

When you wake up to morning’s 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 there; I did not die.

Original attributed to Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004) Middle verse added by Lucie Storrs (1967- )

Down, Gently Down

Down, gently down Softer to sleep Than the bed of night From the littleness Go Down, gently down Wider to wake Than need of sun Into the greatness Go

Carl Seaburg (1922-1998)

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Each Person That Has Ever Lived

Each person that has ever lived has had the same problem. They wanted to be remembered by everyone for what they were. To be forgotten is worse than death. People wanted to be remembered by other things than books and stories. But in the end that’s all we can be remembered by. There’s nothing you can do at this point but live. But when I’m to die I want to be remembered by one thing. I want people to say ‘He was the type of person that believed and saw the good in others even when they couldn’t believe or see it in themselves.’ That is how I want to be remembered.

John M. Ludwig (dates unknown)

Early This Morning – A Lighter Heart

Something quite unexpected has happened. It came this morning early. For various reasons, not in themselves at all mysterious, my heart was lighter than it had been for many weeks. For one thing, I suppose I am recovering physically from a good deal of mere exhaustion. ... And suddenly, at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H. least, I remembered her best. Indeed, it was something (almost) better than memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable impression. To say it was like a meeting would be going too far. Yet there was that in it which tempts one to use those words. It was as if the lifting of the sorrow removed a barrier.

Why has no one told me these things? How easily I might have misjudged another man in the same situation? I might have said, ‘He's got over it. He’s forgotten his wife,’ when the truth was, ‘He remembers her better because he has partly got over it.’

Such was the fact. And I believe I can make sense of it. You can't see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears. You can't, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately: anyway, you can't get the best out of it. ‘Now! Let’s have a real good talk’ reduces everyone to silence. ‘I must get a good sleep tonight’ ushers in hours of wakefulness. Delicious drinks are wasted on a really ravenous thirst. Is it similarly the very intensity of the longing that draws the iron curtain, that makes us feel we are staring into a vacuum when we think about our dead?

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

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Early Death

She passed away like morning dew Before the sun was high; So brief her time, she scarcely knew The meaning of a sigh.

As round the rose its soft perfume, Sweet love around her floated; Admired she grew – while mortal doom Crept on, unfeared, unnoted.

Love was her guardian Angel here, But Love to Death resigned her; Though Love was kind, why should we fear But holy Death is kinder?

Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849)

Eden Rock

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock: My father, twenty-five, in the same suit Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack Still two years old and trembling at his feet.

My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat, Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass. Her hair, the color of wheat, takes on the light.

She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight From an old H.P. sauce-bottle, a screw Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.

The sky whitens as if lit by three suns. My mother shades her eyes and looks my way Over the drifted stream. My father spins A stone along the water. Leisurely, They beckon to me from the other bank.

I hear them call, ‘See where the stream-path is! Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’

I had not thought that it would be like this.

Charles Causley (1917-2003) www.thelightbeyond.com 34

Elegy

Since I lost you, my darling, the sky has come near, And I am of it, the small sharp stars are quite near, The white moon going among them like a white bird among snow-berries, And the sound of her gently rustling in heaven like a bird I hear.

And I am willing to come to you now, my dear, As a pigeon lets itself off from a cathedral dome To be lost in the haze of the sky, I would like to come, And be lost out of sight with you, and be gone like foam.

For I am tired, my dear, and if I could lift my feet, My tenacious feet from off the dome of the earth To fall like a breath within the breathing wind Where you are lost, what rest, my love, what rest!

D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

from An Elegy On The Death Of John Donne

…The flame of thy brave soul, that shot such heat and light As burnt our earth, and made our darkness bright…

Thomas Carew (1595-1640)

Epitaph For A Soldier

Build me no monuments. Should my turn come, Please do not weep for me and waste your tears. Write not my name on honor rolls of fame, to Crumble with man’s memory through the years. Wear no dark clothes; speak in no saddened voice, Seeking rare virtues which did not exist.

I ask one thing – that in still, far-off days, Someone who knew me should in their daily rounds, Suddenly pause, caught by some sight or sound, Some glance, some phrase, some trick of memory’s ways Which brings me to mind, then I shall wait, Eager with hope, perhaps to hear – ‘How great if he were with us still!’ And then at the end, all that I wish for is just – ‘He was my friend!’

David McNicholl, Syria, 1941

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Epitaph On A Friend

An honest man here lies at rest, The friend of man, the friend of truth, The friend of age, and guide of youth: Few hearts like his, with virtue warm’d, Few heads with knowledge so inform’d: If there’s another world, he lives in bliss; If there is none, he made the best of this.

Robert Burns (1759-1796)

Epitaph Upon A Child That Died

Here she lies, a pretty bud, Lately made of flesh and blood: Who as soon fell fast asleep As her little eyes did peep. Give her strewings, but not stir The earth that lightly covers her.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Even In Our Sleep

Even in our sleep Pain which cannot forget Falls drop by drop upon the heart Until, in our own despair, Against our will, Comes wisdom Through the awful grace of God.

Aeschylus (525-456 BC)

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Evolution

Out of the dusk a shadow, Then, a spark.

Out of the cloud a silence, Then, a lark.

Out of the heart a rapture, Then, a pain.

Out of the dead, cold ashes, Life again.

John Banister Tabb (1845-1909)

Farewell

Farewell to Thee! But not farewell To all my fondest thoughts of Thee; Within my heart they still shall dwell And they shall cheer and comfort me.

And who can tell but Heaven, at last, May answer all my thousand prayers, And bid the future pay the past With joy for anguish, smiles for tears.

Anne Brontë (1820-1849)

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Farewell, Sweet Dust

Now I have lost you, I must scatter All of you on the air henceforth; Not that to me it can ever matter But it’s only fair to the rest of the earth.

Now especially, when it is winter And the sun’s not half as bright as it was, Who wouldn’t be glad to find a splinter That once was you, in the frozen grass?

Snowflakes, too, will be softer feathered, Clouds, perhaps, will be whiter plumed; Rain, whose brilliance you caught and gathered, Purer silver have resumed.

Farewell, sweet dust; I never was a miser: Once, for a minute, I made you mine: Now you are gone, I am none the wiser But the leaves of the willow are as bright as wine.

Elinor Wylie (1885-1928)

Finis

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art: I warm’d both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864)

www.thelightbeyond.com 38

For a Child Born Dead

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

Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001)

from For The Fallen

They shall grow not 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.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They have no lot in our labor of the day-time; They sleep beyond England’s foam.

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.

Lawrence Binyon (1869-1943) www.thelightbeyond.com 39

For Whom The Bell Tolls

The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute that this occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God.

Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? But who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne (1572-1631)

From A Grief Observed

Sorrow… turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history, and if I don't stop writing that history at some quite arbitrary point, there’s no reason why I should never stop. There is something new to be chronicled every day. Grief is like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape. As I’ve already noted, not every bend does. Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you had left behind miles ago. That is when you wonder whether the valley isn’t a circular trench. But it isn’t. There are partial recurrences, but the sequence doesn't repeat.

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

www.thelightbeyond.com 40

Funeral Blues

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 crepe 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.

W. H. Auden (1907-1973)

from The Garden Of Proserpine

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

www.thelightbeyond.com 41

The Gate Of The Year

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied, ‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’

So I went forth and finding the Hand of God Trod gladly into the night He led me towards the hills And the breaking of day in the lone east.

So heart be still! What need our human life to know If God hath comprehension? In all the dizzy strife of things Both high and low, God hideth his intention.

Minnie Louise Haskins (1875-1957)

Gestalt At Sixty

I am not ready to die, But I am learning to trust death As I have trusted life. I am moving Toward a new freedom Born of detachment And a sweeter grace – Learning to let go.

I am not ready to die, But as I approach death I turn my face toward the sea. I shall go where tides replace time, Where my world will open to a far horizon.

Over the floating, never-still flux and change, I shall go with the changes, I shall look far out over golden grasses And blue waters ....

There are no farewells.

May Sarton (1912-1995)

www.thelightbeyond.com 42

Give Sorrow Words

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak Whispers the o’er-fraught heart, and bids it break.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

God Be In My Head

God be in my head, and in my understanding; God be in my eyes, and in my looking; God be in my mouth, and in my speaking; God be in my heart, and in my thinking; God be at my end, and at my departing.

Anonymous

Good-Night

Good-night!... my darling sleeps so sound She cannot hear me where she lies; White lilies watch the closed eyes, Red roses guard the folded hands.

Good-night! O woman who once lay Upon my breast, so still, so sweet That all my pulses, throbbing, beat And flamed – I cannot touch you now.

Good-night, my own! God knows we loved So well, that all things else seemed slight – We part forever in the night, We two poor souls who loved so well.

Mary Gilmore (1865-1962)

Good Night! Good Night!

Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days That are no more, and shall no more return. Thou hast but taken up thy lamp and gone to bed; I stay a little longer, as one stays To cover up the embers that still burn.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) www.thelightbeyond.com 43

A Gravestone

Far from the churchyard dig his grave, On some green mound beside the wave; To westward, sea and sky alone, And sunsets. Put a mossy stone, With mortal name and date, a harp And bunch of wild flowers, carven sharp; Then leave it free to winds that blow, And patient mosses creeping; slow, And wandering wings, and footsteps rare Of human creature pausing there.

William Allingham (1824-1889)

The Green Door

But I have lived too much to guess of dying That death’s a garden, or to rhyme its fears, And lived so long – a twelvemonth in a minute – I think time goes by heartbeats, not by years.

Here in my heart I hold such strong abundance, I do not care what lies beyond that door. Life is enough. There is always music, Always more love, more fun, and always more.

And if the green door opens on tomorrow, And every friend still answers to his name, A little death makes eloquent the daylight: It will be glory that the world’s the same.

And we have all been dead, who now are living! Speak out the secret thing we’re certain of: We’re back, we’ve all come back, we’ve all been given A longer time to look, and touch, and love.

And this beloved face of daily living Lights in a thousand different ways for me, With brave and starry reasons for not dying: There is too much to think about, and see…

A long music, and I ask for nothing more This side the narrow portal, death’s green door, Only to cry with mind and heart and tongue That death at any age is dying young.

John Holmes (1904-1962) www.thelightbeyond.com 44 from Grief

O who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs, Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds and rain; My grief hath need of all the watery things That nature hath produced: let every vein Suck up a river to supply mine eyes, My weary weeping eyes, too dry for me, Unless they get new conduits, new supplies, To bear them out, and with my state agree.

George Herbert (1593-1633)

www.thelightbeyond.com 45

A Grief Ago

‘There is no grief which time does not lessen or soften’ – so said Cicero, a man so often right; a Stoic, those for whom all life presents a lesson to be learned from, and then, to move on from…

But I wonder about all this: is grief ever lessened or softened? Is it not, perhaps, overlaid in our so various ways?

For some, grief framed and falsified to ease that grief;

For some, like hyacinths and crocus bulbs, left in a dark cupboard in the autumn of our grief to respond to time, and become at last themselves? gently, gently, the covers pulled over the loving bed, the true, the pure, the lovely painful grief, the memory deep cherished, gently, gently, folded into the cupboards of the heart there to be known, without the door disturbed until the time – ‘a grief ago’ as Dylan wrote – the cupboard opened only for love’s sake without grief...: those carefully folded memories brought out and loved and lived a while... not grief, not grief... but the pure memory of grief and behold, life.

Michael Shepherd (1929- )

www.thelightbeyond.com 46

Grief Is Inconsolable

Grief is inconsolable in that the gap made can never be filled with anyone else than the beloved. I stand near enough to the grave to know the cruelty of the gulf that separates, but the realization does not weaken faith.

Charles H. Brent (1863-1929)

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of; wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air; Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never lark nor even eagle flew – And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee (1922-1941)

www.thelightbeyond.com 47

His Journey’s Just Begun

Don’t think of him as gone away – His journey’s just begun Life holds so many facets This earth is only one.

Just think of him as resting From the sorrows and the tears In a place of warmth and comfort Where there are no days and years.

Think how he must be wishing That we could know today How nothing but our sadness Can really pass away.

And think of him as living In the hearts of those he touched... For nothing loved is ever lost – And he was loved so much.

Ellen Brenneman (dates unknown)

Hold Onto What Is Good

Hold onto what is good even if it is a handful of earth.

Hold onto what you believe even if it is a tree which stands by itself.

Hold onto what you must do even if it is a long way from here.

Hold onto life even when it is easier letting go.

Hold onto my hand even when I have gone away from you.

Pueblo verse

www.thelightbeyond.com 48 from Hymen

Never more will the wind Cherish you again, Never more will the rain. Never more Shall we find you bright In the snow and wind.

The snow is melted, The snow is gone, And you are flown: Like a bird out of our hand, Like a light out of our heart, You are gone.

H. D. (Hilda Doolittle; 1886-1961)

I Dreamed Death Came The Other Night

I dreamed death came the other night, and heaven’s gate swung wide. An angel with a halo bright ushered me inside. And there, to my astonishment, were folks that I had labeled As quite unfit, of little worth, and spiritually disabled. Hot words of anger sprang to my lips, but never were set free – For from their looks of astonishment, no one expected me!

Richard Burt (1922-2001)

If All The Skies

If all the skies were sunshine, Our faces would be fain To feel once more upon them The cooling splash of rain.

If all the world were music, Our hearts would often long For one sweet strain of silence. To break the endless song.

If life were always merry, Our souls would seek relief, And rest from weary laughter In the quiet arms of grief.

Henry van Dyke (1852-1933) www.thelightbeyond.com 49

If Death Is Kind

Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning, We will come back to earth some fragrant night, And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.

We will come down at night to these resounding beaches And the long gentle thunder of the sea, Here for a single hour in the wide starlight We shall be happy, for the dead are free.

Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)

If I Should Go Before The Rest Of You

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.

Joyce Grenfell (1910-1979)

If We Could Only Know

We are so apt to see only what souls go from. When our friend dies we think of all the warm delights of life, all the sweet friendships, all the interesting occupations, all the splendor of the sunlight… If we could only know the presence of God into which our friend enters on the other side, the higher standards, the larger fellowship with all his race, and the new assurance of personal immortality in God; if we could know all this, how our poor comfortless effort of comfort when our friends depart, our feeble raking over the ashes of memory, our desperate struggles to think that the inevitable must be all right; how this would all give way to something almost like a burst of triumph, as the soul we loved went forth to such vast enlargement, to such glorious consummation of its life!

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

www.thelightbeyond.com 50 from The Iliad

Like the leaves in their generations, Such is the race of men. For the wind casts the leaves from their branches To earthward, and again Others the budding greenwood each springtide Beings to birth, So do men’s generations spring up and fade From earth.

Homer (c. 800 BC)

I Look To Thee In Every Need

I look to Thee in every need, and never look in vain; I feel Thy strong and tender love, and all is well again. The thought of Thee is mightier far than sin and pain and sorrow are.

Discouraged in the work of life, disheartened by its load, Shamed by its failures or its fears, I sink beside the road. But let me only think of Thee and then new heart springs up in me.

Thy calmness bends serene above, my restlessness to still; Around me flows Thy quickening life, to nerve my faltering will. Thy presence fills my solitude, Thy providence turns all to good.

Enfolded deep in Thy dear love, held in Thy law, I stand; Thy hand in all things I behold, and all things in Thy hand. Thou leadest me by unsought ways, and turn my mourning into praise.

Samuel Longfellow (1819-1892)

I’m Here For A Short Visit Only

I’m here for a short visit only, And I’d rather be loved than hated. Eternity may be lonely When my body’s disintegrated; And that which is loosely termed my soul Goes whizzing off through the infinite By means of some vague remote control. I’d like to think I was missed a bit.

Noel Coward (1899-1973)

www.thelightbeyond.com 51

I’m Thinking That Soon, Maybe, We’ll Meet

I’m thinking, Dad, that soon, maybe, we’ll meet; At least, that’s how it seems from what I hear; The info’s not at all clear on this point: Like, where exactly; and what will I wear, And shall I bring you something; if so, what? I’m not too easy, Dad, about all this: Like, am I sure to find you in that lot? And, will we treat each other like we did, Or as we should now (God knows how you’ll be…)? And, will we need to talk about past pain? (‘cos that’s what’s really, really bugging me…); Or can we wipe the slate clean, start again? Dad – were you proud of me? You never said… Dad – love you; are things better, now you’re dead?

Michael Shepherd (1929- )

In Deepest Yin

In deepest yin, the world has slid, slowed down to sleep within itself. And what was strong, and what was firm, is weak and limp, its colour seeped, its form withdrawn, its residue returning to the elements. As ember buried under ash, in densest dark the fire is hid for which the out-spent soul does yearn. So to the dark it must give in, as does the plant, surrendering sap, surge and seed back to the earth. Then soul, like plant, may round time’s curve and strike from hidden fire.... rebirth.

Jeremy Naydler (dates unknown)

www.thelightbeyond.com 52

In Memory Of You

I find an old photograph and see your smile. As I feel your presence anew, I am filled with warmth and my heart remembers love.

I read an old card sent many years ago during a time of turmoil and confusion. The soothing words written then still caress my spirit and bring me peace.

I remember who you used to be the laughter we shared and wonder what you have become. Where are you now, where did you go, when the body is left behind and the spirit is released to fly?

Perhaps you are the morning bird singing joyfully at sunrise, or the butterfly that dances so carelessly on the breeze or the rainbow of colors that brightens a stormy sky or the fingers of afternoon mist delicately reaching over the mountains or the final few rays of the setting sun lighting up the skies edging the clouds with a magical glow.

I miss your being but I feel your presence, in whatever form you choose to take, however you now choose to be.

Your spirit has become for me a guardian angel on high guiding, advising, and watching over me.

I remember you. You are with me and I am not afraid.

Kirsti A. Dyer (1960- ) www.thelightbeyond.com 53

In Spring

If I should die (and die I must) please let it be in spring When I, and life up-budding, shall be one And green and lovely things shall blend with all I was And all I hope to be.

The chemistry Of miracle within the heart of love and life abundant Shall be mine, and I shall pluck the star-dust and shall know The mystery within the blade And sing the wind’s song in the softness of the flowered glade.

April is the time for parting, not because all nature’s tears Presage the blooming time of May But joyous should be death and its adventure As the night gives way to the day.

George C. Whitney (1842-1915)

In The Midst Of Life

In the midst of life we are in death.

Book Of Common Prayer

www.thelightbeyond.com 54

Into The Darkness We Lay You Down

Into the darkness and warmth of the earth We lay you down.

Into the sadness and smiles of our memories We lay you down.

Into the cycle of living and dying and rising again We lay you down.

May you rest in peace, in fulfilment, in loving May you run straight home into God’s embrace.

Into the freedom of wind and sunshine We let you go.

Into the dance of the stars and the planets We let you go.

Into the wind’s breath and the hands of the star maker We let you go.

We love you, we miss you, we want you to be happy Go safely, go dancing, go running home.

Author unknown

It Is Not Growing Like A Tree

It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log, at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall, and die that night; It was the plant and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see: And in short measures life may perfect be.

Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

www.thelightbeyond.com 55

I Vow To Thee My Country

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above, Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love; The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test, That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best; The love that never falters, the love that pays the price, The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago, Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know; We may not count her armies, we may not see her King; Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering; And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase, And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.

Cecil Spring-Rice (1859-1918)

I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto the Hills

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, From whence cometh my help. My help cometh even from the Lord: Who hath made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: And he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord himself is thy keeper: The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand; The sun shall not smite thee by day, Nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in, From this time forth, and even for evermore.

Psalm 121:1

www.thelightbeyond.com 56

I Will Not Die An Unlived Life

I will not die an unlived life I will not live in fear Of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, To allow my living to open me Making me less afraid, More accessible To loosen my heart Until it becomes a wing, A torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance. To live so that which came to me as seed Goes to the next as blossom And that which came to me as blossom Goes on as fruit.

Dawna Markova (1942- )

Last Lines

I hoped that with the brave and strong, My portioned task might lie; To toil amid the busy throng, With purpose pure and high.

But God has fixed another part, And He has fixed it well; I said so with my bleeding heart, When first the anguish fell.

A dreadful darkness closes in On my bewildered mind; Oh, let me suffer and not sin, Be tortured, yet resigned.

Shall I with joy thy blessings share And not endure their loss? Or hope the martyr’s crown to wear And cast away the cross?

Thou, God, hast taken our delight, Our treasured hope away; Thou bidst us now weep through the night And sorrow through the day.

www.thelightbeyond.com 57

These weary hours will not be lost, These days of misery, These nights of darkness, anguish-tost, Can I but turn to Thee.

Weak and weary though I lie, Crushed with sorrow, worn with pain, I may lift to Heaven mine eye, And strive to labor not in vain;

That inward strife against the sins That ever wait on suffering To strike whatever first begins – Each ill that would corruption bring;

That secret labour to sustain With humble patience every blow; To gather fortitude from pain, And hope and holiness from woe.

Thus let me serve Thee from my heart, Whate’er may be my written fate: Whether thus early to depart, Or yet a while to wait.

If Thou shouldst bring me back to life, More humbled I should be; More wise, more strengthened for the strife, More apt to lean on Thee.

Should death be standing at the gate, Thus should I keep my vow; But, Lord! whatever be my fate, Oh, let me serve Thee now!

Anne Brontë (1820-1849)

www.thelightbeyond.com 58

Last Wave

I know you love me But I’ve gone where Rose petals are my pillow.

I know you cared for me as I got weak I’ve gone where I can run again.

I know you hoped my pain would ease So I’ve gone where I can smile again.

As I wave goodbye for the last time...

I leave with you My words of encouragement... My memories.

I leave with you My dreams My warmth.

Smile with me... As I go home to rest,

I’m tired.

Dawn MacGregor-Bromfield (1961- )

The Last Year

This is the last year.

There will be no other, but heartless nature seemingly relents.

Never has a winter sun spilled so much light, never have so many flowers dared such early bloom.

The air is brilliant, sharp. Never have I taken such long, long breaths.

Robert Friend (1913-1998) www.thelightbeyond.com 59

Lead, Kindly Light

Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, Lead Thou me on! The night is dark, and I am far from home, Lead Thou me on! Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou Shouldst lead me on. I loved to choose and see my path, but now Lead Thou me on! I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears, Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still Will lead me on, O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till The night is gone; And with the morn those angel faces smile Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

www.thelightbeyond.com 60

Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us

Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us O’er the world’s tempestuous sea; Guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us, For we have no help but thee; Yet possessing every blessing, If our God our Father be.

Savior, breathe forgiveness o’er us, All our weakness thou dost know; Thou didst tread this earth before us, Thou didst feel its keenest woe; Lone and dreary, faint and weary, Through the desert Thou didst go.

Spirit of our God, descending, Fill our hearts with heavenly joy; Love with every passion blending, Pleasure that can never cloy; Thus provided, pardoned, guided, Nothing can our peace destroy.

James Edmeston (1791-1867)

Let Go When The Time Comes

When we can live fully in the present, then and only then can we be fully present to our dying and our death. And then and only then will we find the deeper meaning in life itself.

This then is how we can begin to face death: in seeking our courage by becoming more aware of our fears. by loving what is mortal, and, when the time comes to let it go. and by being present and mindful of every moment of life as well as our impending death.

Michael McGee (dates unknown)

www.thelightbeyond.com 61

Let Me Die, Working

Let me die, working. Still tackling plans unfinished, tasks undone! Clean to its end, swift may my race be run. No laggard steps, no faltering, no shirking; Let me die, working!

Let me die, thinking. Let me fare forth still with an open mind, Fresh secrets to unfold, new truths to find, My soul undimmed, alert, no question blinking; Let me die, thinking!

Let me die, laughing. No sighing o’er past sins; they are forgiven. Spilled on this earth are all the joys of Heaven; The Wine of life, the cup of mirth quaffing. Let me die, laughing!

Samuel Hall Young (1847-1927)

Let Us Endeavor To Live

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

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Let Us Go Hand In Hand

I’m going your way, so let us go hand in hand. You help me and I’ll help you. We shall not be here for very long, for soon death, the kind old nurse, will come back and rock us all to sleep. Let us help one another while we may.

William Morris (1834-1896)

www.thelightbeyond.com 62

Let Us Lead Worthy Lives

I know very well there is no escape from grief. We cannot love very much without suffering much, and the very pain of our suffering is an evidence of the strength of our love, so that we cannot ever wish grief to be less than it is and must be. The best I can wish for you is that you may have courage and strength; you will yourself know where to seek and find it. Some of you will get it, I hope, from the pleasure you have had in Edward’s life, and of his fine example. We who are left have to make our lives continue to be worthy of those from whom we are separated.

Lord Grey (1862-1933)

Let Us Offer Them Back

All love that binds and holds and coerces and refuses to let go destroys and consumes. A parent must set his child free; a couple must be free to choose to love each other every day till death parts them. When death comes, let them go.

It might be helpful to think of this as an offering. They have been given to us – free gifts: love, husbands, wives, children, colleagues, fellow workers, members of a common life. As they have been given to us, let us offer them back… If we are Christians we offer them back to God…

Each successive bereavement can bring greater gentleness, less passion to possess things or prestige or power, an abiding courage, a grounding in life unseen and eternal that cannot be shaken, a willingness not to have your own way all the time, a sense… that pain somehow brings greater power than even knowledge, a realization that the deepest satisfactions are in a peace and joy that the world can neither give nor take away, that all life finally is grace.

John B. Coburn (dates unknown)

Life And Death

In the presence of Life we say NO to Death.

In the presence of Death we say YES to Life.

J. Donald Johnston (dates unknown)

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Life Does Not Take Death Seriously

Life as a whole never takes death seriously. It laughs, dances and plays, it builds, hoards and loves in death’s face. Only when we detach one individual death do we see its blankness and become dismayed. We lose sight of the wholeness of a life of which death is a part. It is like looking at a piece of cloth through a microscope. It appears like a net: we gaze at the big holes and shiver in imagination. But the truth is, death is not the ultimate reality. It looks black as the sky looks blue; but it does not blacken existence, just as the sky does not leave its stain upon the wings of a bird.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Life Is Too Brief

Life is too brief Between the budding and the falling leaf, Between the seed time and the golden sheaf, For hate and spite.

We have no time for malice and for greed; Therefore, with love make beautiful the deed; Fast speeds the night.

W. M. Vories (1880-1964)

Life Must Go On

Grieve for me, for I would grieve for you. Then brush away the sorrow and the tears Life is not over, but begins anew, with courage you must greet the coming years. To live forever in the past is wrong; can only cause you misery and pain. Dwell not on memories overlong, with others you must share and care again. Reach out and comfort those who comfort you; recall the years, but only for a while. Nurse not your loneliness; but live again. Forget not. Remember with a smile.

Navaho Prayer

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The Life That I Have

The life that I have is all that I have, And the life that I have is yours. The love that I have of the life that I have Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have, A rest I shall have, Yet death will be but a pause, For the peace of my years in the long green grass Will be yours and yours and yours.

Leo Marks (1920-2001)

Life! We Have Been Long Together

Life! We have been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather, ’Tis hard to part when friends are dear, Perhaps ’twill cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away; give little warning; Choose thine own time.

Say not, ‘Good Night!’ but in some brighter clime, Bid me, ‘Good Morning!’

Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825)

Like Dew Drops

Like dew drops on a lotus leaf, I vanish.

Senryū Karai, (1765-1838)

A Little Bit Of Me Dies

Each time a person I have treasured dies, a little bit of me dies as well. I wonder if this isn’t nature’s way of easing my own death. There will be so little to give up.

Donald H. Wheat (dates unknown)

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A Little Piece Of Lois awash in the macro visioning of the art exhibit I grounded myself in a disciplined consideration of hardware, fasteners, relative merits of foam core versus pastel board, framed versus frameless spread out in the back counter employee-only area, primary focus of the clerk/artist/member of a mutual admiration society another customer needed her assistance, apologized as he passed by me in the narrow aisle, spoke of his need to return to the hospital to be with his dying mother I murmured sympathy and said I, too, was waiting for hospital news from Colorado where my daughter-in-law and son this very hour were in the delivery room to meet their twins my news from the happier edge of the range of human existence, I noted au contraire, he replied in the 60s, they said death was the greatest adventure of them all, the reason it was saved for last, not to be feared but awaited we moved apart after docking for twenty seconds in our cosmic orbits he said his mother was a wonderful person, he’d been lucky to have the parents he had, perhaps my new grandchildren would be so lucky as to get a little piece of Lois

Cynthia B. Johnson (1942- )

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Living In The Heart’s Memory

A gentle touch upon the forearm with a hand, gloved or warm with life, outside the church door; or turning away from the open grave; or by that concrete place where they lay the floral tributes by the cemetery chapel; or later, as you hand the food around; a gentle touch upon the forearm or a hand sought for to squeeze and hold; or man to man, they favour a shoulder briefly gripped, as if that’s the pressure point where empathetic camaraderie should be applied; the single sentence of consolation, sometimes so well rehearsed, it comes out awkwardly – ‘she’ll be much missed…’ ‘you have so many memories…’ ‘he’ll always be there in our hearts…’ ‘if there’s anything…’ they’ve been through this, themselves, or fear the time they shall –

…‘words must be said, but yet there are no words for this; accept then, these few words in lieu of that deep silence which is itself in lieu of words…’

* * * measured, immutable, as precise as any equation of the calculated world, the heart’s memories: every moment that our heart, in many years, has opened to them, these the heart has stored.

We know the mind can span the imagined world – from travel brochures to the thought of heaven; yet we forget that, greater still, the heart is vast – there’s all the room for them to live on, there, sustained by every moment of love freely given; for the whole creation is one single act of love.

Michael Shepherd (1929- ) www.thelightbeyond.com 67

The Lord Is My Shepherd

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Psalm 23

Lord Of All Hopefulness

Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy, Whose trust, ever childlike, no cares could destroy, Be there at our waking, and give us, we pray, Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of the day.

Lord of all eagerness, Lord of all faith, Whose strong hands were skilled at the plane and the lathe, Be there at our labors, and give us, we pray, Your strength in our hearts, Lord, at the noon of the day.

Lord of all kindliness, Lord of all grace, Your hands swift to welcome, your arms to embrace, Be there at our homing, and give us, we pray, Your love in our hearts, Lord, at the eve of the day.

Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm, Whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm, Be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray, Your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day.

Jan Struther (1901-1953)

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Loss

For one extinguished light Of Love, all heaven is night; For one frail flower the less, The world a wilderness.

John Banister Tabb (1845-1909)

Love Is Stronger Than Fear

Know that the love which blooms inside you is stronger than fear, for people who love find strength they don’t know they had. Know that the love inside you is stronger than illness, for people who love hang in when physical health is gone. And know that love is indeed stronger than death, for people who love are like stones tossed into a pool. The circles of love radiate out and echo back long after the stone has come to rest at the bottom.

Mark DeWolfe (dates unknown)

Make Me Brave For Life

God, make me brave for life: oh, braver than this. Let me straighten after pain, as a tree straightens after the rain, Shining and lovely again.

God, make me brave for life; much braver than this. As the blown grass lifts, let me rise From sorrow with quiet eyes, Knowing Thy way is wise.

God, make me brave, life brings Such blinding things.

Help me to keep my sight; Help me to see aright That out of dark comes light.

Author unknown

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May The Lord Be Close To You

May the Lord be close to you in this time of sorrow.

May the Lord gently help you through each and every day, especially the ones that seem hardest and longest.

May the Lord comfort you to ease your sadness, and to give you strength for the days ahead.

May the Lord give you hope and as you feel the pain of loss, may his promise of eternal life console your heart.

Amen

The Prayer Trust

May The Roads Rise Up To Meet You

May the roads rise up to meet you, May the wind be always at your back, May the sun shine warm upon your face, May the rains fall soft upon your fields And until we meet again May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Traditional Irish blessing

from Meditations Of The Heart

I share with you the agony of your grief, The anguish of your heart finds echo in my own. I know I cannot enter all you feel Nor bear with you the burden of your pain;

I can but offer what my love does give: The strength of caring, The warmth of one who seeks to understand The silent storm-swept barrenness of so great a loss.

This I do in quiet ways, That on your lonely path You may not walk alone.

Howard Thurman (1900-1981)

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The Miracle Of Transformation

I never go to a funeral without thinking of this miracle of transformation which brings the bird out of the egg, the flower out of the seed, the dragon-fly out of its water lava. In his own mysterious way God has emptied the nest by the hatching method, and all that was excellent, lovable and permanent in the one we loved has found itself in the realm for which it was fitted. The body is only the empty shell, the shattered seed, the old husk, which the forces of nature will slowly turn back again into its original elements, to use over again for its myriad processes of building.

Rufus Jones (1863-1948)

Miss Me – But Let Me Go

When I come to the end of the road, And the sun has set for me, I want no rites in a gloom-filled room, Why cry for a soul set free?

Miss me a little, but not too long, And not with your head bowed low; Remember the love that we once shared, Miss me – but let me go.

For this is a journey we all must take, And each must go alone; It’s all a part of life’s plan, A step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick of heart, Go to the friends we know, And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds; Miss me – but let me go.

Author unknown

Mother Earth, Father Sky

Oh Mother Earth, Father Sky, Brother Wind, Friend Light, Sweetheart Water, Here take my last salutation with folded hands! For today I am melting away into the Supreme Because my heart became pure, And all delusion vanished, Through the power of your good company.

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Mourners

After the funeral, the mourners gather under the rustling churchyard maples and talk softly, like clusters of leaves. White shirt cuffs and collars flash in the shade; highlights on deep green water.

They came this afternoon to say goodbye, but now they keep saying hello and hello, peering into each other’s faces, slow to let go of each other’s hands.

Ted Koosier (dates unknown)

Music Of Sorrow

It is often in sorrow that our lives are taught their sweetest songs. There are human lives that never in the calm of quiet days yield the music that is in them. It is only when the breezes of care and trouble sweep over them that they give out soft murmurings of song.

Bishop Thorold (1825-1895)

My Coming, My Going

Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it. My coming, my going Two simple happenings That got entangled.

Kozan Ichikyo (c.1283-1360)

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Nature

As a fond mother, when the day is o’er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;

So nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

Nearer, My God, To Thee

Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee! E’en though it be a cross That raiseth me, Still all my song shall be, ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!’

Though, like the wanderer, The sun gone down, Darkness be over me, My rest a stone, Yet in my dreams I’d be Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!

There let the way appear, Steps unto heaven; All that Thou sendest me, In mercy given: Angels to beckon me Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!

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Then, with my waking thoughts Bright with Thy praise, Out of my stony griefs Bethel I’ll raise; So by my woes to be Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!

Or, if on joyful wing Cleaving the sky, Sun, moon, and stars forgot, Upwards I fly, Still all my song shall be, ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!’

There in my Father’s home, Safe and at rest, There in my Savior’s love, Perfectly blest; Age after age to be, Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer to Thee!

Sarah Flower Adams (1805-1848)

Never Did I Want So Much For You

Never did I want so much for you As when I sat there in the downstairs room Where you’d just died, so restlessly askew With thrashing limbs too angled for a tomb; Not with the peace I thought you must deserve, Not with the words of love and tender care, Not with last precious memories to preserve, Not with a gentle breath, but gasping air; Only at peace when after all event, Only at rest when rest was past your ken, Only to touch, when you could not prevent And push aside my hands; and only then… And then, I begged with all my heart of God To judge you as I loved you: wholly good.

Michael Shepherd (1929- )

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A New Quietness Fills our Hearts

Why do we claim that the world beyond death is a world without terrors? Because we believe that a God of love, unfailing and all-including love, planned this vast scheme of things. We cannot believe that He would frighten or hurt any of his children, either in life or after death. When terrifying things happen here on earth they are (we believe) the work of something or someone other than our Father-in-Heaven. And the life after death? We believe that it is through a quiet door the dead pass, that it is in a friendly world they find themselves, that there they retain their identity and their love for us. At that point our speculations stop… but meantime our fear has faded. In place of dread a new quietness fills our hearts. We are confident that our dead are safe, and that around them as around us is a never-failing Divine Love.

James Gordon Gilkey (1889-1964)

from The Night

There is in God (some say) A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here Say it is late and dusky, because they See not all clear; O for that night! where I in him Might live invisible and dim.

Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)

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No Coward Soul

No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere: I see Heaven’s glories shine, And Faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast, Almighty, ever-present Deity! Life – that in me has rest, As I – undying Life – have Power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one Holding so fast by Thine infinity; So surely anchored on The steadfast rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love Thy spirit animates eternal years, Pervades and broods above, Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone, And suns and universes ceased to be, And Thou wert left alone, Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death, Nor atom that his might could render void: Thou – Thou art Being and Breath, And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

Emily Brontë (1818-1848)

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No Funeral Gloom

No funeral gloom, my dears, when I am gone, Corpse-gazing, tears, black raiment, graveyard grimness. Think of me as withdrawn into the dimness, Yours still, you mine. Remember all the best Of our past moments and forget the rest; And so to where I wait, come gently on.

William Allingham (1824-1889)

Non Nobis Tantum Nati

Though I am dead, grieve not with tears; Think not of death with sorrowing and fears; I am so near that every tear you shed Touches me, although you think me dead.

But when you laugh and sing in glad delight, Thy soul is lifted upwards to the height, And I, though dead, will share your joy in living.

Author unknown

No Single Thing Abides

No single thing abides; but all things flow. Fragment to fragment clings – the things thus grow Until we know and name them. By degrees They melt, and are no more the things we know.

Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift I see the suns, I see the systems lift Their forms; and even the systems and the suns Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift.

Thou too, oh earth – thine empires, lands, and seas – Least with thy stars, of all the galaxies, Globed from the drift, like these thou too Shalt go. Thou art going, hour by hour, like these.

Nothing abides. The seas in delicate haze Go off; those mooned sands forsake their place; And where they are, shall other seas in turn Mow with their scythes of whiteness other bays.

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The seeds that once were we take flight and fly, Winnowed to earth, or whirled along the sky, Not lost but disunited. Life lives on. It is the lives, the lives, the lives, that die.

Flakes of the water, on the waters cease! Soul of the body, melt and sleep like these. Atoms to atoms – weariness to rest – Ashes to ashes – hopes and fears to peace!

Lucretius (c. 99-55 BC)

Not, How Did He Die, But How Did He Live?

Not, how did he die, but how did he live? Not, what did he gain, but what did he give?

These are the units to measure the worth Of a man as a man, regardless of birth. Not what was his church, nor what was his creed? But had he befriended those really in need?

Was he ever ready, with word of good cheer, To bring back a smile, to banish a tear? Not what did the sketch in the newspaper say, But how many were sorry when he passed away?

Author unknown

Now Breathe Great Breaths Of Heaven now breathe great breaths of heaven move well for pain has gone cry joy and sing your heart beats strong now cherished little one

John Davies (1962- )

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Often When The Heart Is Torn With Sorrow

Often when the heart is torn with sorrow, spiritually we wander like a traveler lost in a deep wood. We grow frightened, lose all sense of direction, batter ourselves against trees and rocks in our attempt to find a path. All the while there is a path – a path of faith – that leads straight out of the dense tangle of our difficulties into the open road we are seeking. Let us not weep for those who have gone away when their lives were at full bloom and beauty… Who shall say whether those who die in the splendor of their prime are not fortunate to have known no abatement, no dulling of the flame by ash, no slow fading of life’s perfect flower.

Helen Keller (1880-1968)

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O God, Our Help In Ages Past

O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home!

Under the shadow of Thy throne Thy saints have dwelt secure; Sufficient is Thine arm alone, And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood, Or Earth received her frame, From everlasting Thou art God, To endless years the same.

Thy Word commands our flesh to dust: “Return, ye sons of men,” All nations rose from earth at first, And turn to earth again.

A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Be Thou our guard while troubles last, And our eternal home.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

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O God, Whose Ways Are Hidden

O God, whose ways are hidden and thy words most wonderful, who makest nothing in vain and lovest all that thou hast made: we give thee thanks for thy son/daughter (name), who was so dear to us, for his/her life and his/her love, and for the light and peace and contentment which he/she brought to us. Comfort us thy servants, whose hearts are sore smitten and oppressed; and grant that we may so love and serve thee in this life by love and service to others, that with him/her we may obtain the fullness of thy promises in the world to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

From Common Worship: Pastoral Services, The Church Of England

O Help Us To Think Wisely

O help us to think wisely, To speak rightly, To resolve bravely And to live purely. Support us in life And comfort us in death.

A soldier’s prayer, from Winchester Cathedral

Old Age Flowing Free

Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937)

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O May I Join The Choir Invisible

O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man’s search To vaster issues.

So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world.

May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense! So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.

George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans; 1819-1880)

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On Dying

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud on the horizon, just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, ‘There she goes!’

Gone where?

Gone from my sight... that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, ‘There she goes!’ there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: ‘Here she comes!’

This is how I see and understand death.

Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)

One Equal Eternity

Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity; in the habitations of thy glory and dominion, world without end.

John Donne (1572-1631)

One Man’s Life

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

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One Person

Sometimes only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869)

Only A Little While

We were together only a little while, And we believed our love Would last a thousand years.

Otomo no Yakamochi (c.716-785)

On Pain

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; and you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

from On The Beach At Night

Weep not, child, Weep not, my darling, With these kisses let me remove your tears; The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious, They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition: Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge, They are immortal, all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall shine out again, The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure, The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

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On The Death Of A Child

Like a dewdrop kissed off by the sun’s morning beams, A brief but a beauteous existence was given; Her soul seemed to come down to earth in a dream, And only to wake when ascending to heaven.

Thomas Aird (1802-1876)

On The World

The world’s an Inn; and I her guest. I eat; I drink; I take my rest. My hostess, nature, does deny me Nothing, wherewith she can supply me; Where, having stayed a while, I pay Her lavish bills, and go my way.

Francis Quarles (1592-1644)

O Still Small Voice Of Calm

Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease; Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess The beauty of Thy peace.

Breathe through the pulses of desire Thy coolness and Thy balm; Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, O, still small voice of calm. from Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

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Our Revels Now Are Ended

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air; And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Our Spirit Of Resistance

The chief pang of most troubles is not so much the actual suffering, as our own spirit of resistance to it.

Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803)

Out Of Sorrow Comes Understanding

Out of their sorrow shall come understanding, Through suffering they are joined with all who live.

Stanton Coit (1857-1944)

The Overcoming Of Suffering

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life.

Helen Keller (1880-1968)

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The Parting Glass

Oh all the time that e’er I spent, I spent it in good company. And any harm that e’er I’ve done, I trust it was to none but me. May those I’ve loved through all the years Have memories now they’ll e’er recall. So fill to me the parting glass, Good night, and joy be with you all.

Oh all the comrades that e’er I had, Are sorry for my going away. And all the loved ones that e’er I had, Would wish me one more day to stay. But since it falls unto my lot That I should leave and you should not, I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call Good night, and joy be with you all.

Of all good times that e’er we shared, I leave to you fond memory. And for all the friendship that e’er we had, I ask you to remember me. And when you sit and stories tell, I’ll be with you and help recall. So fill to me the parting glass, God bless, and joy be with you all.

Irish Traditional Song

A Parting Guest

What delightful hosts are they – Life and Love! Lingeringly I turn away, This late hour, yet glad enough They have not withheld from me Their high hospitality. So, with face lit with delight And all gratitude, I stay Yet to press their hands and say, “Thanks. – So fine a time! Good night.”

James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916)

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A Perfect Day

When you come to the end of a perfect day, And you sit alone with your thought, While the chimes ring out with a carol gay For the joy that the day has brought, Do you think what the end of a perfect day Can mean to a tired heart, When the sun goes down with a flaming ray, And the dear friends have to part?

Well, this is the end of a perfect day, Near the end of a journey, too; But it leaves a thought that is big and strong, With a wish that is kind and true. For memory has painted this perfect day With colours that never fade, And we find, at the end of a perfect day, The soul of a friend we’ve made.

Carrie Jacobs Bond (1862-1946)

The Plants Who Teach Me All I Know

The plants, who teach me all I know, have shown me it is part of life to be frozen and formless in the dark below.

Dying, the thing that we most dread, each year they readily embrace: I bow to them, my friends the plants, who shed their forms with such good grace.

They give themselves to winter’s night, and then, when all’s completely lost, from dark and cold they rise again and strive, strive, strive for the light.

Jeremy Naydler (dates unknown)

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A Poem For My Friend Whose Mother Is Near Death

I forwarded a poem to her by email this morning a poem about seeing and being remembering and moving forward through space and noticing each other’s oddities with an unblinking gaze

a short message of my own: Thinking of you, hoping you are feeling everything intensely but are not overwhelmed. Love, Cynthia

A few minutes earlier, I had left a message on her answering machine offering to come see her if I would be an interlude not a distraction.

How do we comfort one another when our mothers are dying slowly or suddenly just up and die or even when we are still missing them after they’ve been gone hundreds of calendar days?

Do we send two cups of ginger tea through the mail hope she can imagine hot tea and scones shared in a sunny room on a winter afternoon? Shall I order a new sable paint brush from a catalogue to remind her there will be long hours in her studio later after what is happening has happened? Shall I pass along decisions the committee made about all sorts of things or help her assume the whole world is on hold while this awful thing is happening no newspapers published because there is no news the economy floundering because no one is buying anything politicians opening their mouths without words coming out autumn on hold because scarlet might feel unseemly and bare trees unbearable? Shall we leave her to her keening the howling way women do in the Middle East when their sons die?

When mothers die, a piece of us is dislodged forever Know, too, that we do survive companioned by memories in our bones

Cynthia B. Johnson (1942- )

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Praise Of A Man

He went through a company like a lamplighter – see the dull minds, one after another, begin to glow, to shed a beneficent light.

He went through a company like a knifegrinder – see the dull minds scattering sparks of themselves, becoming razory, becoming useful.

He went through a company as himself. But now he’s one of the multitudinous company of the dead where there are no individuals.

The beneficent lights dim but don’t vanish. The razory edges dull, but still cut. He’s gone: but you can see his tracks still, in the snow of the world.

Norman MacCaig (1910-1996)

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Prayer For A Baby Who Died

She was so small, so beautiful, so full of hope and promise. What a blessing she has been to all of us who knew her those few short months.

She taught us to love, to hope beyond expectation, to trust in that which is unseen. She drew us together in our anxiety, our moments of despairing and hopelessness, as well as in our joys and delight, and in her every breath.

Her life ended prematurely; just so had she been born. Too soon she died. We wept. The tears continue. We hugged and held one another.

The pain will always linger. Our hearts emptier for her absence and the unfulfilled dreams she promised.

But the love she brought into our lives will live forever. Thank you for giving her to us. Thank you for the blessing that she will always be.

Thank you for the love we would never have known, but for her and her brief days with us. Thank you for _____, our blessed child of grace. Amen.

Vienna Cobb Anderson (dates unknown)

www.thelightbeyond.com 91

Prayer For All Occasions

For simple things that are not simple at all; For miracles of the common way . . . Sunrise . . . Sunset Seedtime . . . Harvest Hope . . . Joy . . . Ecstasy

For Grace that turns our intentions into deeds, our compassion into helpfulness our pain into mercy;

For Providence that sustains and supports our needs; We lift our hearts in thankfulness and pray only to be more aware and thus more alive. Amen and amen.

Gordon B. McKeeman (1920- )

Prayer For A Memorial Service

God of tears and the mysterious silence, God of suffering and God of hope, you have made for everything a season. This is the season of our sorrow, of our grief, and we pray for grace to deal with what seems impossible to deal with. We remember the promise made to those who mourn, yet too often it seems that comfort is beyond our grasp. We know that we cannot bear this burden alone. Should we pray for our grief to be transformed, or is the purpose of our grief to transform us? Will our sorrow lead somewhere unexpected? Might it lead us back to life if we follow it? Is it a reminder of the precious reality of life and love? The death of our loved one has created a vast, empty space within our lives, a great longing within our hearts. Can it ever be filled? Can it be healed by the sacred memory that makes our loved one forever a part of us?

So many questions, O God, and so much silence. May we be patient toward all that is unanswered in our hearts. And may others be patient with us, with our sorrow, our anger, our fear and our questions. We are those who mourn. We seek the comfort that we can offer each other and the blessings of divine love and grace. Amen.

Kirk Loadman-Copeland (1949- )

www.thelightbeyond.com 92

Prayer For Peace

Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth. Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust. Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace. Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.

Satish Kumar (1936- )

Prayer For Those Who Have Committed Suicide

Bless, O God of eternal life, all who have died by their own hand. Grant them peace from their inner turmoil and the compassion of your love.

Comfort those who mourn their loved ones. Strengthen them to face the questions of pain, the guilt and anger, the irreparable loss.

Help us to reach out in love to others who prefer death to the choices of life and to their families who grieve.

Amen.

Vienna Cobb Anderson (dates unknown)

Prayer For Those Who Mourn

Almighty God, Father of all mercies and giver of all comfort: deal graciously, we pray thee, with those who mourn, that casting every care on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Book Of Common Prayer

www.thelightbeyond.com 93

A Psalm Of Life

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us further than to-day. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act – act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o’erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

www.thelightbeyond.com 94 from Rebecca

When people suffer a great shock, like death, or the loss of a limb, I believe they don’t feel it just at first. If your hand is taken from you, you don’t know, for a few minutes, that your hand is gone. You go on feeling the fingers. You stretch and beat them on the air, one by one, and all the time there is nothing there, no hand, no fingers… I was shocked at my lack of emotion and this queer cold absence of distress. Little by little the feeling will come back to me, I said to myself, little by little I shall understand.

Daphne du Maurier (1907-1989)

Remarkable

It shouldn’t seem remarkable But still it does To realize, as we walk at Summer’s end along the beach, The waves keep rolling in and ebbing out Long after we have turned and walked away.

Oh sure, the sands will shift and dunes will move. The waves will change in color, shape and size. But always they’ll be rolling in and out, The never ending sound will fall and rise.

Something like the same is in the woods. This trail will still be here beneath the oaks With mist or sunlight beckoning ahead And birdsong laced between the shifting leaves When we have left the trail and gone away.

Well yes, they may come in with trucks and saws And fell the tall tree down across the trail. But still its trace will probably remain Beside a sapling oak that’s sprouting there.

It shouldn’t seem remarkable But it still does To know the sun most definitely will rise In blue skies or behind some matted clouds The morning after the day that I have died.

Sue Pfaltz (dates unknown)

www.thelightbeyond.com 95

Remember Me When I Am Gone Away

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 planned. Only remember me; you understand It will be too 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 (1830-1894)

www.thelightbeyond.com 96

Remembrance

Cold in the earth – and the deep snow piled above thee! Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave! Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee, Severed at last by Time’s all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover Over the mountains, on that northern shore; Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover That noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild Decembers From those brown hills have melted into spring: Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembers After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive if I forget thee, While the world’s tide is bearing me along: Other desires and other hopes beset me, Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lightened up my heaven, No other Star has ever shone for me: All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given, All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.

But, when the days of golden dreams had perished, And even Despair was powerless to destroy, Then did I learn how existence could be cherished, Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy;

Then did I check the tears of useless passion, Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine; Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten Down to that tomb already more than mine.

And even yet, I dare not let it languish, Dare not indulge in Memory’s rapturous pain; Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, How could I seek the empty world again?

Emily Brontë (1818-1848)

www.thelightbeyond.com 97

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

A Return To Eternity

The rugged old Norsemen spoke of death as Heimgang: home-going. So the snow- flowers go home when they melt and flow to the sea, and the rock-ferns, after unrolling their fronds to the light and beautifying the rocks, roll them up close again in the autumn and blend with the soil. Myriads of rejoicing living creatures, daily, hourly, perhaps every moment sink into death’s arms, dust to dust, spirit to spirit – waited on, watched over, noticed only by their Maker, each arriving at its own Heaven-dealt destiny. All the merry dwellers of the trees and streams, and the myriad swarms of the air, called into life by the sunbeam of a summer morning, go home thru death, wings folded perhaps in the last red rays of sunset of the day they were first tried. Trees towering in the sky, braving storms of centuries, flowers turning faces to the light for a single day or hour, having enjoyed their share of life’s feast – all alike pass on and away under the law of death and love. Yet all are our brothers and they enjoy life as we do, share Heaven’s blessings with us, die and are buried in hallowed ground, come with us out of eternity and return into eternity.

John Muir (1838-1914)

www.thelightbeyond.com 98

Rise Up Slowly, Angel

Rise up slowly, Angel For I cannot let you go Just drift softly midst the faces In sorry now bent low

Ease the searing anger, Born in harsh, unyielding truth. That Death could steal my loved one, From the glowing blush of youth.

Rise up slowly, Angel Do not leave me here alone Where the warmth of mortal essence, Lies replaced by cold hard stone

Speak to me in breezes, Whispered through the drying leaves And caress my brow with raindrops, Filtered by the sheltering trees.

Rise up slowly, Angel For I cannot hear the song Which calls you through the shadows, Into the light beyond.

Wrap me in a downy cape, Of sunshine, warm with love. And kiss a tear-stained mother’s face With moonlight from above.

Then wait for me at sunset, Beside the lily pond. And guide me safely homeward To your world, which lies beyond.

Just spread your arms to take me In reunion’s sweet embrace. And we shall soar, together To a different time and place.

Diane Robertson (dates unknown)

www.thelightbeyond.com 99 from Romeo and Juliet

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 (1564-1616)

Save Me, O God

Save me, O God; for the waters are come in even unto my soul.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

I am weary of my crying: my throat is dry: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God.

Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters.

Let not the water-flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.

Hear me, O Lord; for thy loving-kindness is good: turn thee unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.

Psalm 69: 1-3, 14-16

www.thelightbeyond.com 100

Separated By The Thinnest of Veils

We must think of the dead as alive and joyful and we must rejoice in their happiness, remembering that we are in close and constant communion with them, our life only separated from theirs by the thinnest of veils. We must remember, too, that this does not separate us either from God – our eternal joy, who more than makes up all that we lack – or from the companionship of those who are with God in infinite time and space. Let us be brave and keep the eyes of our souls wide open to all these realities: let us see clearly around us those things which others only care to see dimly.

Abbé Henri de Tourville (1842-1903)

from Set In Stone

In a cemetery once, an old one in New England, I found a strangely soothing epitaph. The name of the deceased and her dates had been scoured away by wind and rain, but there was a carving of a tree with roots and branches (a classic nineteenth-century motif) and among them the words, “She attended well and faithfully to a few worthy things.” At first this seemed to me a little meager, a little stingy on the part of her survivors, but I wrote it down and have thought about it since, and now I can’t imagine a more proud or satisfying legacy. Every day I stand in danger of being struck by lightning and having the obituary in the local paper say, for all the world to see, “She attended frantically and ineffectually to a great many unimportant, meaningless details.”

How do you want your obituary to read?

Victoria Safford (1959- )

www.thelightbeyond.com 101

She Is Gone

You can shed tears that she is gone or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she’ll come back or you can open your eyes and see all she’s left.

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see her or you can be full of the love 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 her and only that she’s gone or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back or you can do what she’d want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

Anonymous

She Speaks Of Death

Oblivion, she said in a weary voice, is what is after death. There is nothing after death but nothing and that’s all right with me.

It made good scientific sense, nailed to the cathedral door of her religious childhood.

And when her husband died a few years later oblivion pinned against eternity sagged in the middle and in its folds sweet disbelief surprised her and the hope she hadn’t seen the last of him yet. for J.V.

Barbara Pescan (dates unknown) www.thelightbeyond.com 102

Sixty-Eighth Birthday

As life runs on, the road grows strange With faces new, and near the end The milestones into headstones change, ’Neath every one a friend.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

The Slow Wisdom Of Grief

The grief that death brings is, of course, not all of one level. The death of an aged, helpless parent can be welcomed as a blessed release for the person whose work is finished, with no lack of love or respect for the deceased. When a younger person is known to be incurably ill in mind or body, one can mourn his passing without wanting his bondage to earth to be prolonged. Every death brings the sadness of separation to those who love. But it is when death comes prematurely, or violently, or suddenly and without warning, that the shock of bereavement can be life’s bitterest experience.

How can one bear it? How pick up the threads of life to carry them forward? Again only a few simple suggestions will be offered.

First, one must accept the inevitable. One may be too stunned at first to believe it can be true. Yet it is true. The person who was a warm, sweet, living presence is no longer here, and will not be again except in memory. No fruitful reordering of life is possible until this fact is accepted.

One must not expect all at once to adjust to it. It is part of ‘grief’s slow wisdom’ that only time can heal the poignancy of the hurt. To try to hurry the process is not so much disrespect toward the deceased as the creation of new inner conflicts in the living.

One must give expression without shame to his grief... if one feels moved to weep in private or in public, it is far better to do so than to keep it bottled up. Repression can work serious havoc by driving the poison of sorrow inward.

Georgia Harkness (1891-1974)

www.thelightbeyond.com 103

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me: That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England’s, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse on the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

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So Many Different Lengths Of Time

How long does a man live, after all? Is it a thousand days, or only one? One week, or a few centuries? How long does a man spend living or dying and what do we mean when we say ‘gone forever’?

Adrift in such preoccupations, we seek clarification. We can go to the philosophers but they will weary of our questions. We can go to the priests and rabbis but they might be busy with administrations.

So, how long does a man live after all? And how much does he live while he lives? We fret and ask so many questions - then when it comes to us the answer is so simple after all.

A man lives for as long as we carry him inside us, for as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams, for as long as we ourselves live, holding memories in common, a man lives.

His lover will carry his man’s scent, his touch: his children will carry the weight of his love. One friend will carry his arguments, another will hum his favourite tunes, another will still share his terrors.

And the days will pass with baffled faces, then the weeks, then the months, then there will be a day when no question is asked, and the knots of grief will loosen in the stomach and the puffed faces will calm.

And on that day he will not have ceased but will have ceased to be separated by death.

How long does a man live, after all? A man lives so many different lengths of time.

Brian Patten (1946- )

www.thelightbeyond.com 105

Some Things Will Never Change

Some things will never change. Some things will always be the same. Lean down your ear upon the earth, and listen.

The voice of forest water in the night, a woman’s laughter in the dark, the clean, hard rattle of naked gravel, the cricketing stitch of midday in hot meadows, the delicate web of children’s voices in bright air – these things will never change.

The glitter of sunlight on roughened water, the glory of the stars, the innocence of morning, the smell of the sea in harbors, the feathery blur and smoky buddings of young boughs, and something there that comes and goes and never can be captured, the thorn of spring, the sharp and tongueless cry – these things will always be the same.

All things belonging to the earth will never change – the leaf, the blade, the flower, the wind that cries and sleeps and wakes again, the trees whose stiff arms clash and tremble in the dark, and the dust of lovers long since buried in the earth – all things proceeding from the earth to seasons, all things that lapse and change and come again upon the earth – these things will always be the same, for they come up from the earth that never changes, they go back into the earth that lasts forever. Only the earth endures, but it endures forever.

The tarantula, the adder, and the asp will also never change. Pain and death will always be the same. But under the pavements trembling like a pulse, under the buildings trembling like a cry, under the waste of time, under the hoof of the beast above the broken bones of cities, there will be something growing like a flower, something bursting from the earth again, forever deathless, faithful, coming into life again like April.

Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938)

www.thelightbeyond.com 106

A Song Of Living

Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die. I have sent up my gladness on wings, to be lost in the blue of the sky. I have run and leaped with the rain, I have taken the wind to my breast. My cheek like a drowsy child to the face of the earth I have pressed. Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

I have kissed young Love on the lips, I have heard his song to the end. I have struck my hand like a seal in the loyal hand of a friend. I have known the peace of heaven, the comfort of work done well. I have longed for death in the darkness and risen alive out of hell. Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

I give a share of my soul to the world, when and where my course is run. I know that another shall finish the task I must surely leave undone. I know that no flower, no flint was in vain on the path I trod. As one looks on a face through a window, through life I have looked on God. Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

Amelia Josephine Burr (1878-1968)

www.thelightbeyond.com 107

Song Of The River

The snow melts on the mountain And the water runs down to the spring, And the spring in a turbulent fountain, With a song of youth to sing, Runs down to the riotous river, And the river flows on to the sea, And the water again Goes back in rain To the hills where it used to be.

And I wonder if Life’s deep mystery Isn’t much like the rain and the snow Returning through all eternity To the places it used to know. For life was born on the lofty heights And flows in a laughing stream To the river below Whose onward flow Ends in a peaceful dream.

And so at last, When our life has passed And the river has run its course, It again goes back, O’er the selfsame track, To the mountain which was its source.

So why prize life Or why fear death, Or dread what is to be? The river ran its allotted span Till it reached the silent sea. Then the water harked back to the mountaintop To begin its course once more.

So we shall run the course begun Till we reach the silent shore, Then revisit earth in a pure rebirth From the heart of the virgin snow. So don’t ask why we live or die, Or wither, or when we go, Or wonder about the mysteries That only God may know.

William R. Hearst (1863-1951)

www.thelightbeyond.com 108

Sonnet 30

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste. Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe, And moan the expense of many a vanished sight. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored and sorrows end.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

from Sonnets From The Portuguese

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

www.thelightbeyond.com 109

Sonnet To Rupert Brooke

We laid him in a cool and shadowed grove One evening in the dreamy scent of thyme Where leaves were green, and whispered high above – A grave as humble as it was sublime;

There, dreaming in the fading deeps of light – The hands that thrilled to touch a woman’s hair; Brown eyes, that loved the Day, and looked on Night, A soul that found at last its answered Prayer...

There daylight, as a dust, slips through the trees. And drifting, gilds the fern around his grave – Where even now, perhaps, the evening breeze

Steals shyly past the tomb of him who gave New sight to blinded eyes; who sometimes wept – A short time dearly loved; and after, – slept.

John Gillespie Magee (1922-1941)

Sorrow

Sorrow like a ceaseless rain Beats upon my heart. People twist and scream in pain, Dawn will find them still again; This has neither wax nor wane, Neither stop nor start.

People dress and go to town; I sit in my chair. All my thoughts are slow and brown: Standing up or sitting down Little matters, or what gown Or what shoes I wear.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

www.thelightbeyond.com 110

Sorrow Must Be Lived With

Sorrow cannot be fought and overcome; it cannot be evaded or escaped; it must be lived with… we must learn how to shoulder the burden of it, to carry it so that it does not break our stride or sap the strength of those about us through their pity for our woe. Death of the young and vigorous when they still have much to experience and much to give, loss of the rare and precious person in midstream, is comparatively unusual in good times, but in times of war it becomes tragically frequent. Somehow we must learn not only to meet it with courage, which is comparatively easy, but to bear it with serenity, which is more difficult, being not a single act but a way of living.

‘Men help each other by their joy,’ Ruskin said, ‘not by their sorrow.’ Sorrow may be the plow and the harrow which dig the soil and crumble it fine, but it is the fresh-springing plant of joy that is directly of benefit to our fellows.

Elizabeth Gray Vining (1902-1999)

Stars, Songs, Faces

Gather the stars if you wish it so. Gather the songs and keep them. Gather the faces of women. Gather for keeping years and years. And then . . .

Loosen your hands, let go and say goodbye. Let the stars and songs go. Let the faces and years go. Loosen your hands and say goodbye.

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

Stars Whose Light Shines

There are stars whose light shines on the face of the earth after they are no longer in the heavens. There are people whose memory gives light after they are no longer among us. These lights shine and illumine the road in darkness in the gray of night.

Hannah Szenes (1921-1944)

www.thelightbeyond.com 111

Streaks

Comets visit when they must. Flicking their dragon tails toward earth, they hurtle by. Their passage fills the sky with dragon dust.

Earth’s ball of life spins toward sun, trails clouds of cells and souls whose clocks decree release from gravity. Their work is done.

Both souls and dust are called upon to streak the endless night, fall down from sky, brief light for mind and eye, cry glory and pass on.

Ann Bushnell (1926- )

Sudden Death And The To Do List

Comes the day when life stops. Sometimes abruptly. Unscheduled. Unplanned. The calendar full of appointments for tomorrows not to be. Large things, like tickets bought but not used. Like dinner parties for which invitations have been mailed, responses received. Like speeches scheduled and project deadlines agreed to. Small things, like clothes at the dry cleaners. Like a small stack of phone messages to be returned. Like two lamb chops thawing for tonight’s dinner. No one’s daytimer lists “Death – all day Wednesday” as the final appointment.

Cynthia B. Johnson (1942- )

www.thelightbeyond.com 112 from Surviving Death

We do not recover from the death of a loved one. In fact, we never recover from that death in the same way we recover from an illness or broken limb. It will always be a part of us – always – and to suggest otherwise is unrealistically and harshly to imply that we somehow “get over” the feelings about the event or stop experiencing painful reminiscences of the loved one or the death.

A much more accurate metaphor is represented in the old Carole King song “Tapestry.”

My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue An everlasting vision of the everchanging view A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.

In fact our lives are “tapestries,” and the death of a loved one is a ripping, gaping, bleeding hole in the very midst of that tapestry of our life. How, then, is the tapestry rewoven? It does not, with the mere passage of time, magically pull itself back together. Rather, it is rewoven only with the initiative, energy, and strength of the survivor reaching in and grasping the torn ends of threads, painfully pulling them back and tying them together. And it is rewoven only with those persons around the survivor cutting threads from their own tapestries and bringing them to the survivor, with love and support and caring and tears and strength, helping to further tie the threads and fill in the gaping hole.

So, eventually, the tapestry is rewoven. But that “glitch” is always there, the roughness of that reweaving is, and always will be, apparent. In fact it may be twenty years from now, as the survivor reviews the tapestry of his or her life, or is in a particular setting, or hears a song on the radio, or remembers a special day of the month, that the rewoven seam is seen and felt again, and the survivor remembers and cries, or feels sad, or is touched by the love and caring expressed by those whose threads are apparent there – and that is perfectly normal. We do not recover from a death, but when we allow others to help, we can reweave our tapestry.

Charles Meyer (1947-2000)

Take All The Risk Of Life

Taking shelter in the dead is death itself, and only taking all the risk of life to the fullest extent is living.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

www.thelightbeyond.com 113

Talking To Grief

Ah, Grief, I should not treat you like a homeless dog who comes to the back door for a crust, for a meatless bone. I should trust you.

I should coax you into the house and give you your own corner, a worn mat to lie on, your own water dish.

You think I don’t know you’ve been living under my porch. You long for your real place to be readied before winter comes. You need your name, your collar and tag. You need the right to warn off intruders, to consider my house your own and me your person and yourself my own dog.

Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

www.thelightbeyond.com 114

Testament

‘But how can I live without you?’ she cried.

I left all the world to you when I died; Beauty of earth and air and sea; Leap of a swallow or a tree; Kiss of rain and wind’s embrace; Passion of storm and winter’s face; Touch of feather, flower and stone; Chiseled line of branch or bone; Flight of stars, night’s caravan; Song of crickets – and of man – All these I put in my testament, All these I bequeathed you when I went.

‘But how can I see them without your eyes Or touch them without your hand? How can I hear them without your ear, Without your heart, understand?’

These too, these too, I leave to you!

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001)

There Is No Death

There is no death! The stars go down To rise upon some fairer shore, And bright in heaven’s jeweled crown They shine for evermore.

There is no death! The dust we tread Shall change beneath the summer showers To golden grain or mellowed fruit Or rainbow-tinted flowers.

There is no death! The leaves may fall, And flowers may fade and pass away; They only wait, through wintry hours, The coming of the May.

And ever near us, though unseen, The dear immortal spirits tread; For all the boundless universe Is Life – there are no dead!

John Luckey McCreery (1835-1906) www.thelightbeyond.com 115

They Softly Walk

They are not gone who pass Beyond the clasp of hand, Out from the strong embrace, They are but come so close We need not grope with hands, Nor look to see, nor try To catch the sound of feet. They have put off their shoes Softly to walk by day Within our thoughts, to tread At night our dream-led paths.

They are not lost who find The sunset gate, the goal Of all their faithful years. Nor lost are they who reach The summit of their climb, The peak above the clouds And storms. They are not lost Who find the light of sun And stars and God.

They are not dead who live In hearts they leave behind In those who they have blessed They live a life again, And shall live through the years Eternal life, and grow Each day more beautiful As time declares their good, Forgets the rest, and proves Their immortality.

Hugh Robert Orr (dates unknown)

This Existence Of Ours

This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds, To watch the birth and death of beings is like looking at the movements of a dance, A lifetime is like a flash of lightning in the sky, Rushing by, like a torrent down a steep mountain.

Buddha (c. 563-483 BC)

www.thelightbeyond.com 116

Those Who Are Gone You Love

Those who are gone you love. Those who departed loving you love you still and you love them always. They are not really gone, those dear hearts and true; they are only gone into the next room, and you will get up presently and follow them, and yonder door will close upon you and you will be seen no more.

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

A Thought On Death

When life as opening buds is sweet, And golden hopes the fancy greet, And Youth prepares his joys to meet, Alas! how hard it is to die! When just is seized some valued prize, And duties press, and tender ties Forbid the soul from earth to rise, How awful then it is to die!

When, one by one, those ties are torn, And friend from friend is snatched forlorn, And man is left alone to mourn, Ah then, how easy ’tis to die!

When faith is firm, and conscience clear, And words of peace the spirit cheer, And visioned glories half appear, ’Tis joy, ’tis triumph then to die.

When trembling limbs refuse their weight, And films, slow gathering, dim the sight, And clouds obscure the mental light, ’Tis nature’s precious boon to die.

Anna Laetitia Barbauld (1743-1825)

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Thoughts That Lie Too Deep For Tears

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. from Intimations Of Immortality

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

from Threnody

The south-wind brings Life, sunshine, and desire, And on every mount and meadow Breathes aromatic fire, But over the dead he has no power, The lost, the lost, he cannot restore, And, looking over the hills, I mourn The darling who shall not return.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Time And Grief

O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) The faint pang stealest unperceived away; On thee I rest my only hope at last, And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o’er all my soul held dear, I may look back on every sorrow past, And meet life’s peaceful evening with a smile: As some lone bird, at day’s departing hour, Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while: Yet ah! how much must this poor heart endure, Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure!

William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850)

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Time Does Not Bring Relief

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year’s bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide! There are a hundred places where I fear To go, so with his memory they brim. And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face, I say, ‘There is no memory of him here!’ And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

A Time Of Thanksgiving

Let this be a time of thanksgiving for a life lived, and not a brooding upon death.

Kenneth Patton (1911-1994)

www.thelightbeyond.com 119

To All Parents

“I’ll lend you for a little time a child of mine,” He said. “For you to love the while he lives and mourn when he is dead, “It may be six or seven years, or twenty-two or three, “But will you, till I call him back, take care of him for me?

“He’ll bring his charms to gladden you, but should his stay be brief, “You’ll have his lovely memories, as solace for your grief, “I cannot promise he will stay, since all from earth return, “But there are lessons taught down there I want this child to learn.

“I’ve looked the wide world over in my search for teachers true, “And from the throngs that crowd life’s lanes I have selected you. “Now will you give him all your love, nor think the labor vain, “Nor hate me when I come to call to take him back again?”

I fancied that I heard them say: “Dear Lord, Thy will be done! “For all the joy Thy child shall bring, the risk of grief we’ll run. We’ll shelter him with tenderness; we’ll love him while we may, And for happiness we’ve known forever grateful stay.

“But should the angels call for him much sooner than we’d planned, “We’ll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand.”

Edgar Guest (1881-1959)

To Everything There Is A Season

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die…

A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance…

A time to gain, And a time to lose…

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

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To Joy

Through the morning mist you reached out And touched me into prayer. I felt Your presence: a sea of peace And just a little fear. All joy, Like a white church upon a hill, Shining spire stretching out to heaven And welcoming the glory of a kingdom coming close.

For you I could rejoice, for the voice Of angels was almost within hearing; But I could feel the parting void, And I wept because I knew That I must let go my need of you.

Margaret Mary Gilley (dates unknown)

To Live And Bravely Fight

It is worthwhile for me to live And bravely fight for saintly ideals Although disappointed a thousand times And perhaps even to fall in this fight When everything would seem in vain.

Blow, angry winds, through my stony body; You will not conquer my soul. I have lived in the center of eternity, My soul will be eternal. My living was worth it.

Whoever has been set upon from all sides, But with his soul has conquered, Is welcome in the chorus of heroes. Whoever has broken his shackles And given wings to his mind Is marching into a golden future.

Norbert Ĉapek (1870-1942)

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To Those I Love

If I should ever leave you whom I love To go along the silent way, Grieve not, Nor speak of me with tears, But laugh and talk of me As if I were beside you there.

(I’d come – I’d come, could I but find a way! But would not tears and grief be barriers?)

And when you hear a song or See a bird I loved, Please do not let the thought of me be sad... For I am loving you just as I always have... You were so good to me!

There are so many things I wanted still to do – So many things to say to you... Remember that I did not fear… It was just leaving you that was so hard to face... We cannot see beyond... But this I know: I love you so –

’twas heaven here with you!

Isla Paschal Richardson (1886-1971)

Toward Union With A Greater Wholeness

We struggle against death with all our force, for it is our fundamental duty as living creatures to do so. But when, by virtue of the state of things, death comes, we experience that paradox of faith that causes us to abandon the struggle and affirm death as part of a greater plan for the universe as a whole.

To love life so much, and to trust it so completely that we can affirm it even in its final act... this is an attitude that can calm and fortify us.

The end is to love extravagantly the life that is greater than any one of us, seeing our own death as a physically necessary passage toward union with a greater wholeness.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)

www.thelightbeyond.com 122 from To W. P.

Living you made it goodlier to live, Dead you will make it easier to die.

With you a part of me hath passed away; For in the peopled forest of my mind A tree made leafless by this wintry wind Shall never don again its green array.

Chapel and fireside, country road and bay, Have something of their friendliness resigned; Another, if I would, I could not find, And I am grown much older in a day.

But yet I treasure in my memory Your gift of charity, your mellow ease, And the dear honor of your amity; For these once mine, my life is rich with these.

And I scarce know which part may greater be, – What I keep of you, or you rob of me.

George Santayana (1863-1952)

www.thelightbeyond.com 123

Transfiguration

Mysterious death! who in a single hour Life’s gold can so refine And by thy art divine Change mortal weakness to immortal power!

Bending beneath the weight of eighty years Spent with the noble strife Of a victorious life We watched her fading heavenward, through our tears.

But ere the sense of loss our hearts had wrung A miracle was wrought; And swift as happy thought She lived again: brave, beautiful, and young.

Age, pain, and sorrow dropped the veils they wore And showed the tender eyes Of angels in disguise, Whose discipline so patiently she bore.

The past years brought their harvest rich and fair, While memory and love, Together, fondly wove A golden garland for the silver hair.

How could we mourn like those who are bereft, When every pang of grief Found balm for its relief In counting up the treasures she had left?

Faith that withstood the shocks of toil and time, Hope that defied despair, Patience that conquered care, And loyalty, whose courage was sublime…

We thought to weep, but sing for joy instead, Full of the grateful peace That follows her release; For nothing but the weary dust lies dead.

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

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The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf Like something almost being said; The recent buds relax and spread, Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again And we grow old? No, they die too, Their yearly trick of looking new Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

Turn Again To Life

If I should die and leave you here awhile, Be not like others, sore undone, who keep Long vigils by the silent dust, and weep. For my sake, turn again to life and smile, Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do Something to comfort weaker hearts than thine. Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine And I perchance may therein comfort you.

Mary Lee Hall (dates unknown)

The Turning Hour Of Life

There are no times in life when opportunity, the chance to be and to do, gathers so richly about the soul as when it has to suffer. Then everything depends upon whether the man looks to the lower or the higher helps… If he looks to God, the hour of suffering is the turning hour of life.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893)

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A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move, ’Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did and meant, But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assur’d of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two; Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the centre sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must Like th’ other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes me end, where I begun.

John Donne (1572-1631) www.thelightbeyond.com 126

Vitae Summa Brevis

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, Love and desire and hate: I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream.

Ernest Dowson (1867-1900)

We Bereaved Are Not Alone

We bereaved are not alone… When it seems that our sorrow is too great to be borne, let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance, and inevitably, we will feel about us their arms, their sympathy, their understanding.

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.

Helen Keller (1880-1968)

We Cannot Judge

We cannot judge a biography by its length, Nor by the number of pages in it. We must judge it by the richness of its contents

Sometimes those unfinished are among the most poignant…

We cannot judge a song by its duration Nor by the number of its notes We must judge it by the way it touches and lifts our souls

Sometimes those unfinished are among the most beautiful…

And when something has enriched your life And when its melody lingers on in your heart Is it unfinished? Or is it endless?

Viktor Frankl (1905-1997)

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We Grow Accustomed To The Dark

We grow accustomed to the Dark, When light is put away, As when the neighbour holds the lamp To witness her Goodbye.

A moment we uncertain step For the newness of the night, Then, fit our vision to the Dark, And meet the road erect.

And so of larger Darknesses, Those evenings of the brain, When not a Moon discloses a sign, Or star, come out, within.

The Bravest grope a little, And sometimes hit a tree, Directly in the forehead, But as they learn to see, Either Darkness alters Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight, And life steps almost straight.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

The Well Of Grief

Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief turning downward through its black water to the place we cannot breathe will never know the source from which we drink, the secret water, cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering the small round coins thrown by those who wished for something else.

David Whyte (1955- )

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We Need Not Fear The Coming Of The Dark

“Old men forget!” Aye! It may well be so: But youth remembers all the magic spun And woven in the warm fraternal glow Of your companionship. Your day is done? It is not true. You know you left behind A memory of courage which the years Can but increase. And we, your heirs will find That in good truth there’s nothing here for tears.

So be it. This your legacy to youth – To make the best of all your days, And finally to recognize the truth That you have shown us, silhouetted, stark, That though we loved the sunlight’s summer rays We need not fear the coming of the dark.

Edward Stanley of Alderley (1802-1869)

We Will Grieve Not

What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. from Intimations Of Immortality

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

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What Is It To Die?

What is it to die but to stand naked in the wind, and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence, shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountaintop, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then you shall truly dance.

Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

What Will You Give?

What will you give When death knocks at your door?

The fullness of my life – The sweet wine of autumn days and summer nights, My little hoard gleaned through the years, And hours rich with living.

These will be my gift When death knocks at my door.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

When I Am Dead, My Dearest

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 nor set, Haply I may remember, And haply may forget.

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

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When I Die

When I die Give what’s left of me away To children And old men that wait to die. And if you need to cry, Cry for your brother Walking the street beside you. And when you need me, Put your arms Around anyone And give them What you need to give to me.

I want to leave you something, Something better Than words Or sounds.

Look for me In the people I’ve known Or loved, And if you cannot give me away, At least let me live on your eyes And not on your mind.

You can love me most By letting Hands touch hands, By letting Bodies touch bodies, And by letting go Of children That need to be free.

Love doesn’t die, People do. So, when all that’s left of me Is love, Give me away.

Merrit Malloy (dates unknown)

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When I Die And Leave Behind

When I die and leave behind This earth I love These trees, this sky, The pounding sea, The yearly hope of spring, Cry not for me, Rejoice.

My soul has wings And in its freedom sings.

Author unknown

www.thelightbeyond.com 132 from When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’d

Come, lovely and soothing Death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate Death.

Prais’d be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious; And for love, sweet love – but praise! praise! praise! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.

Dark Mother, always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee – I glorify thee above all; I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach, strong Deliveress! When it is so – when thou hast taken them, I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death.

From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose, saluting thee – adornments and feastings for thee; And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting, And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night, in silence, under many a star; The ocean shore, and the husky whispering wave, whose voice I know; And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veil’d Death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song! Over the rising and sinking waves – over the myriad fields, and the prairies wide; Over the dense-pack’d cities all, and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O Death!

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

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When My Hour Is Come

When my hour is come Let no teardrop fall And no darkness hover Round me where I lie. Let the vastness call One who was its lover, Let me breathe the sky.

Where the lordly light Walks along the world, And its silent tread Leaves the grasses bright, Leaves the flowers uncurled, Let me to the dead Breathe a gay goodnight.

George William Russell (1867-1935)

When We Finally Know We Are Dying

When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.

Sogyal Rinpoche (c. 1950- )

www.thelightbeyond.com 134

The Widower

For a season there must be pain – For a little, little space I shall lose the sight of her face, Take back the old life again While She is at rest in her place.

For a season this pain must endure, For a little, little while I shall sigh more often than smile Till Time shall work me a cure, And the pitiful days beguile.

For that season we must be apart, For a little length of years, Till my life’s last hour nears, And, above the beat of my heart, I hear Her voice in my ears.

But I shall not understand – Being set on some later love, Shall not know her for whom I strove, Till she reach me forth her hand, Saying, ‘Who but I have the right?’ And out of a troubled night Shall draw me safe to the land.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Youth And Age

This is what youth must figure out: Girls, love, and living. The having, the not having, The spending and giving, And the melancholy time of not knowing.

This is what age must learn about: The ABC of dying. The going, yet not going, The loving and leaving, And the unbearable knowing and knowing.

E. B. White (1899-1985)

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Submit poems and readings

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Credits

Many thanks to everyone who has helped me turn this long-held dream into a reality. I am enormously grateful to you all; this project means a lot to me.

Use of “Author Unknown”

Some inspirational resources and quotes on the Internet or in print are published without an author, or as anonymous. Before using poems and quotations in this book, we have searched for the origins of the resource and tried our best to identify the original author and attribute appropriately. When we have been unable to find an author, we have stated “author unknown”. We do not claim any copyright for stories or poems or any other written works in this book that we have not written.

Copyright issues or missing credits

Despite our attempts to trace the original author of a resource, there may be instances when we have been unsuccessful or in error. If you find something in this book which is misquoted or misattributed, or if you are an author or interested party of any of the written works displayed in this book and wish for it to be attributed appropriately or removed, please notify us using the Contact page on our site and it will be remedied.

Copyrighted material

Our gratitude is due to the following individuals and publishers for granting their permission for The Light Beyond to use copyrighted material:

Auden. W.H.: ‘Funeral Blues’ (page 41) is reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd. Copyright © 1940 by W.H. Auden.

Burt, Richard: ‘I Dreamed Death Came The Other Night’ (page 49) is used with the kind permission of Margaret Kohut.

Bushnell, Ann: ‘Streaks’ (page 112) is used with the kind permission of the author. www.thelightbeyond.com 136

Causley, Charles: ‘Eden Rock’ (page 34), from ‘Collected Poems’ published by Picador, is used with the kind permission of David Higham Associates.

Coburn, John B.: ‘Let Us Offer Them Back’ (page 63) from ‘Twentieth Century Spiritual Letters’ is used with the kind permission of Westminster John Knox Press.

Coward, Noel: ‘I’m Here For A Short Visit Only’ (page 51) © NC Aventales AG. Copyright agent: Alan Brodie Representation Ltd. 6th floor, Fairgate House, 78 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1HB. [email protected]

Davies, John: ‘Now Breathe Great Breaths Of Heaven’ (page 78) is used with the kind permission of the author, a vicar in Liverpool, UK. His blog can be viewed at www.johndavies.org

Du Maurier, Daphne: the extract from ‘Rebecca’ (page 95) is reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Estate of Daphne du Maurier. Copyright © Daphne du Maurier 1938.

Dyer, Kirsti MD, MS, FT: ‘In Memory Of You’ (page 53) is used with the kind permission of the author. Dr. Dyer is a grief and loss expert and the creator of www.journeyofhearts.org, an online healing place for anyone grieving a loss. ‘In Memory of You’ has also been used in sympathy cards, as a Christmas card insert, read at funerals and found its way onto many Internet memorial sites.

Friend, Robert: ‘The Last Year’ (page 59) is used with the kind permission of Jean Shapiro Cantu ([email protected]) © Jean Shapiro Cantu.

Gilley, Margaret Mary: ‘To Joy’ (page 121) is used with kind permission of the author, who wrote the poem for her dear friend Joy Greaves.

Grenfell, Joyce: ‘If I Should Go Before The Rest Of You’ (page 50) is reproduced by the kind permission of Sheil Land Associates Ltd on behalf of the author. © Joyce Grenfell.

Harkness, Georgia: ‘The Slow Wisdom Of Grief’ (page 103) is an excerpt from ‘Prayer And The Common Life’ and is used with the kind permission of the publishers, Abingdon Press.

Jacoby, Susan: ‘A Different Self’ (page 28) is used with the kind permission of the author, who also wrote ‘Freethinkers: A History Of American Secularism’.

Jennings, Elizabeth: ‘For A Child Born Dead’ (page 39), is from ‘New Collected Poems’ published by Carcanet; with the permission of David Higham Associates.

Johnson, Cynthia B. Rev.: ‘Sudden Death And The To Do List’ (page 112) from ‘A Theophany, Please’, ‘A Little Piece Of Lois’ (page 66) and ‘A Poem For My Friend Whose Mother Is Near Death’ (page 89) are used with the kind permission of the author.

www.thelightbeyond.com 137

Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth: ‘Death Can Show Us The Way’ (page 26) is used with the kind permission of the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation, details of which can be found at www.ekrfoundation.org and www.elisabethkublerross.com.

Kumar, Satish: ‘Prayer For Peace’ (page 93) is used with the kind permission of the Peace Prayer website. http://peaceprayer.gn.apc.org

Larkin, Philip: ‘The Trees’ (page 125) is used with the kind permission of the Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Philip Larkin.

Lewis, C.S.: ‘Early This Morning – A Lighter Heart’ (page 33) and ‘From A Grief Observed’ (page 41) are both from ‘A Grief Observed’ by C.S. Lewis copyright © C.S. Lewis Pte Ltd 1961. Extract reprinted by permission

Levertov, Denise: ‘Talking To Grief’ (page 114) is taken from POEMS 1972-1982, copyright © 1978 by Denise Levertov. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Loadman-Copeland, Kirk Rev.: ‘Prayer For A Memorial Service’ (page 92) is used with the kind permission of the author. www.firstuniversalist.org

MacCaig, Norman: ‘Praise Of A Man’ (page 90) from ‘Collected Poems’ is reproduced by permission of Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd (www.birlinn.co.uk).

MacGregor-Bromfield, Dawn: ‘Last Wave’ (page 59) is used with the kind permission of the author. Details of Dawn’s book ‘Tigox’ can be found at www.discoverjamaica.com/shop/tigox/ e-mail: [email protected]

Magee, John Gillespie: ‘High Flight’ (page 47) and ‘Sonnet To Rupert Brooke’ (page 110) are used with the kind permission of This England magazine. www.thisengland.co.uk

Malloy, Merrit: ‘When I Die’ (page 131) is used with the kind permission of the author. www.merritmalloy.com

Markova, Dawn: ‘I Will Not Die An Unlived Life’ (page 57) is used with the kind permission of the author. www.smartwired.org and www.ptpinc.org

McGee, Michael Rev.: ‘Let Go When The Time Comes’ (page 61) is used with the kind permission of the author. www.uucava.org

McKeeman, Gordon B. Rev.: ‘Chalice Lighting’ (page 21) and ‘A Prayer For All Occasions’ (page 92) are used with the kind permission of the author. ‘A Prayer For All Occasions’ is from the author’s meditation manual ‘Out Of The Ordinary’.

Meyer, Charles: ‘from Surviving Death’ (page 113) is used with the kind permission of the publishers, www.23rdpublications.com

www.thelightbeyond.com 138

Millay, Edna St. Vincent: ‘Ashes Of Life’ (page 11), ‘Dirge Without Music’ (page 29), ‘Sorrow’ (page 110) and ‘Time Does Not Bring Relief’ (page 119) are used with the kind permission of Elizabeth Barnett, Literary Executor.

Naydler, Jeremy: ‘The Plants Who Teach Me All I Know’ (page 88) and ‘In Deepest Yin’ (page 52) are used with the kind permission of the author and Godstow Press (www.godstowpress.co.uk), publishers of Jeremy’s book ‘Soul Gardening’ from which these poems are taken.

Patten, Brian: ‘So Many Different Lengths Of Time’ (page 105) is used with the kind permission of Rogers, Coleridge & White Literary Agency.

Pescan, Barbara Rev.: ‘She Speaks Of Death’ (page 102) from ‘Morning Watch’ published by Skinner House Books is used with the kind permission of the author. www.ucevanston.org

Prayer Trust: ‘May The Lord Be Close To You’ (page 70) is used with the kind permission of www.theprayertrust.org.uk

Safford, Victoria Rev.: ‘Set In Stone’ (page 101) is used with the kind permission of the author. www.whitebearunitarian.org

Sarton, May: ‘Gestalt At Sixty’ (page 42) is reprinted by the permission of Russell & Volkening as agents for the author. Copyright © 1972 by May Sarton, renewed in 2000 by the Estate of May Sarton.

Seaburg, Carl: ‘Down, Gently Down’ (page 32) is used with the kind permission of Alan Seaburg and the Unitarian Universalist Association. www.uua.org

Shepherd, Michael: ‘A Grief Ago’ (page 46), ‘Bereavement’ (page 16), ‘Living In The Heart’s Memory’ (page 67), ‘Never Did I Want So Much For You’ (page 74) and ‘I’m Thinking That Soon, Maybe, We’ll Meet’ (page 52) are used with the kind permission of the author (whose poems can be seen at www.poemhunter.com) and Godstow Press (www.godstowpress.co.uk). Godstow Press also publishes Michael Shepherd’s excellent book of sonnets, entitled ‘When I Awaken To Myself’.

Thomas, Dylan: ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ (page 31), from ‘Collected Poems’ published by Dent, is used with the kind permission of David Higham Associates.

Thurman, Howard: ‘from Meditations Of The Heart’ (page 70) is from the book ‘Meditations Of The Heart’ by Howard Thurman, copyright © 1953, 1981 by Anne Thurman, reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston.

Whyte, David: ‘The Well Of Grief’ (page 128) from ‘Where Many Rivers Meet’ is used with the kind permission of Many Rivers Press. www.davidwhyte.com

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Index of authors

Adams, Sarah Flower, 74 Aeschylus, 36 Aiken, Conrad, 9 Aird, Thomas, 85 Alcott, Louisa May, 124 Allingham, William, 44, 77 Amial, Henri Frédéric, 17 Anderson, Vienna Cobb, 91, 93 Arlett, Vera, 5 Auden, W. H., 41 Barbauld, Anna Laetitia, 65, 117 Binyon, Lawrence, 39 Bond, Carrie Jacobs, 88 Bowles, William Lisle, 118 Brenneman, Ellen, 48 Brent, Charles H., 25, 47 Brontë, Anne, 37, 58 Brontë, Emily, 76, 97 Brooke, Rupert, 104 Brooks, Phillips, 50, 125 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 109 Buddha, 116 Burns, Robert, 36 Burr, Amelia Josephine, 107 Burroughs, John, 5 Burt, Richard, 49 Buscaglia, Leo, 26 Bushnell, Ann, 112 Ĉapek, Norbert, 121 Carew, Thomas, 35 Causley, Charles, 34 Coburn, John B., 63 Coit, Stanton, 86 Cole, Eloise, 18 Coleridge, Hartley, 34 Coward, Noel, 51 Davies, John, 78 de Chardin, Pierre Teilhard, 122 de Lamartine, Alphonse, 84 de Sales, Saint Francis, 30 de Tourville, Abbé Henri, 101 DeWolfe, Mark, 69 Dickinson, Emily, 20, 128 Donne, John, 25, 40, 83, 126 Dowson, Ernest, 127 Dryden, John, 26 du Maurier, Daphne, 95 www.thelightbeyond.com 140

Dyer, Kirsti A., 53 Eaton, David, 22 Edmeston, James, 61 Ehrmann, Max, 28 Eliot, George, 82 Eliot, T. S., 83 Ellerton, John, 24 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 118 Frankl, Viktor, 127 Friend, Robert, 59 Frye, Mary Elizabeth, 32 Gibran, Kahlil, 16, 84, 130 Gilkey, James Gordon, 75 Gilley, Margaret Mary, 121 Gilmore, Mary, 43 Grenfell, Joyce, 50 Grey, Lord, 63 Grou, Jean Nicolas, 86 Guest, Edgar, 120 Gunther, Frances, 9 H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), 49 Hall, Mary Lee, 125 Hardy, Thomas, 9 Harkness, Georgia, 103 Haskins, Minnie Louise, 42 Hearst, William R., 108 Heavysege, Charles, 24 Herbert, George, 45 Herrick, Robert, 10, 36 Holland, Henry Scott, 27, 83 Holmes, John, 5, 27, 44 Homer, 51 Hope, Laurence, 20 Hughes, Langston, 25 Ichikyo, Kozan, 72 Ingersoll, Robert G., 13 Jacoby, Susan, 28 Jennings, Elizabeth, 39 Johnson, Cynthia B., 66, 89, 112 Johnston, J. Donald, 63 Jones, Rufus, 71 Jonson, Ben, 55 Karai, Senryū, 65 Keller, Helen, 79, 86, 127 Kipling, Rudyard, 135 Koosier, Ted, 72 Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth, 26 Kumar, Satish, 93 Landor, Walter Savage, 27, 38 www.thelightbeyond.com 141

Larkin, Philip, 125 Lawrence, D. H., 35 Levertov, Denise, 114 Lewis, C.S., 33, 40 Li Po, 21 Lindbergh, Anne Morrow, 115 Loadman-Copeland, Kirk, 92 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 6, 26, 43, 73, 94 Longfellow, Samuel, 51 Lowell, James Russell, 8, 103 Lucretius, 78 Ludwig, John M., 33 Lyte, Henry Francis, 4 MacCaig, Norman, 90 MacGregor-Bromfield, Dawn, 59 Magee, John Gillespie, 47, 110 Malloy, Merrit, 131 Markova, Dawna, 57 Marks, Leo, 65 McCreery, John Luckey, 115 McGee, Michael, 61 McKeeman, Gordon B., 21, 92 McNicholl, David, 35 Meyer, Charles, 113 Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 11, 29, 110, 119 Monroe, Dorothy N., 22 Morris, William, 62 Muir, John, 98 Naydler, Jeremy, 52, 88 Newman, John Henry, 60 Orr, Hugh Robert, 116 Oxenham, John, 12 Parker, Dorothy, 20 Patten, Brian, 105 Patton, Kenneth, 19, 119 Pescan, Barbara, 102 Pfaltz, Sue, 95 Quarles, Francis, 85 Richardson, Isla Paschal, 122 Riley, James Whitcomb, 14, 87 Rinpoche, Sogyal, 134 Robertson, Diane, 99 Rossetti, Christina, 96, 130 Russell, George William, 134 Safford, Victoria, 101 Sandburg, Carl, 111 Santayana, George, 123 Sarton, May, 42 Seaburg, Carl, 32 www.thelightbeyond.com 142

Seneca, 26 Shakespeare, William, 23, 43, 86, 100, 109 Shepherd, Michael, 16, 46, 52, 67, 74 Smith, Robert H., 21 Spring-Rice, Cecil, 56 Stanley, Edward of Alderley, 129 Stevenson, Adlai, 11 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 98 Storrs, Lucie, 32 Struther, Jan, 68 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 41 Szenes, Hannah, 111 Tabb, John Banister, 37, 69 Tagore, Rabindranath, 64, 113, 130 Teasdale, Sara, 50 Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 10, 19, 23 Thackeray, William Makepeace, 117 Thomas, Dylan, 31 Thorold, Bishop, 72 Thurman, Howard, 70 Twain, Mark, 62 van Dyke, Henry, 49 Vaughan, Henry, 75 Vining, Elizabeth Gray, 111 von Schlegel, Katharina Amalia, 17 Vories, W. M., 64 Watts, Isaac, 80 Wharton, Edith, 81 Wheat, Donald H., 65 Wheeler Wilcox, Ella, 18 White, E. B., 135 Whitman, Walt, 84, 133 Whitney, George C., 54 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 85 Whyte, David, 128 Wolfe, Thomas, 106 Wordsworth, William, 118, 129 Wylie, Elinor, 38 Yakamochi, Otomo no, 84 Young, Samuel Hall, 62

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Index of first lines

A gentle touch upon the forearm ...... 67 A man’s life is laid in a loom of time...... 30 Abide with me! fast falls the eventide ...... 4 After the funeral, the mourners gather...... 72 Ah, Grief, I should not treat you like a homeless dog ...... 114 All living substance, all substance of energy, being and purpose...... 22 All love that binds and holds and coerces and refuses to let go ...... 63 All lovely things will have an ending ...... 9 All things decay with time: the forest sees...... 10 Almighty God, Father of all mercies and giver of all comfort...... 93 Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it ...... 86 An honest man here lies at rest...... 36 As a fond mother, when the day is o’er ...... 73 As life runs on, the road grows strange ...... 103 As virtuous men pass mildly away...... 126 As you love me, let there be no mourning when I go...... 12 Awash in the macro visioning of the art exhibit...... 66 Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side...... 17 Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die ...... 107 Bless, O God of eternal life, all who have died by their own hand ...... 93 Break, break, break, on thy cold gray stones, O Sea! ...... 19 Brief our days, but long for singing ...... 19 Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening...... 83 Build me no monuments. Should my turn come ...... 35 But how can I live without you? she cried...... 115 But I have lived too much to guess of dying ...... 44 Clean is the autumn wind ...... 21 Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing...... 10 Cold in the earth – and the deep snow piled above thee!...... 97 Come, lovely and soothing Death...... 133 Comes the day when life stops...... 112 Comets visit when they must...... 112 Dear Lovely Death, that taketh all things under wing...... 25 Death can show us the way...... 26 Death has taken thee too, and thou hast the dew of thy youth...... 26 Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time...... 26 Death is not too high a price to pay for having lived ...... 22 Death is nothing at all ...... 27 Death stands above me, whispering low ...... 27 Death this year has taken men whose kind we shall not see again...... 27 Death, be not proud, though some have called thee ...... 25 Death, in itself, is nothing; but we fear...... 26 Death, of which we so much fear, and from which we shrink ...... 26 Do everything for God, uniting yourself to Him ...... 30 Do not go gentle into that good night...... 31 Do not stand at my grave and weep ...... 32 www.thelightbeyond.com 144

Don’t think of him as gone away...... 48 Down, gently down, softer to sleep than the bed of night ...... 32 Drop Thy still dews of quietness ...... 85 Each person that has ever lived has had the same problem ...... 33 Each time a person I have treasured dies, a little bit of me dies as well...... 65 Empty-handed I entered the world...... 72 Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget ...... 36 Far from the churchyard dig his grave ...... 44 Farewell to Thee! But not farewell ...... 37 Fear no more the heat o’ th’ sun...... 23 For a season there must be pain ...... 135 For one extinguished light of Love, all heaven is night ...... 69 For simple things that are not simple at all ...... 92 Save me, O God...... 100 From too much love of living, from hope and fear set free...... 41 Gather the stars if you wish it so...... 111 Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak...... 43 Go placidly amid the noise and haste...... 28 God be in my head, and in my understanding ...... 43 God of tears and the mysterious silence ...... 92 God, make me brave for life: oh, braver than this...... 69 Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said...... 43 Good-night!... my darling sleeps so sound ...... 43 Grief is inconsolable in that the gap made can never be filled...... 47 Grieve for me, for I would grieve for you...... 64 He went through a company like a lamplighter...... 90 Here she lies, a pretty bud...... 36 Hold onto what is good ...... 48 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways ...... 109 How great unto the living seem the dead ...... 24 How long does a man live, after all?...... 105 I am not ready to die...... 42 I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground...... 29 I am standing upon the seashore, a ship at my side...... 83 I cannot say and I will not say that she is dead...... 14 I dreamed death came the other night...... 49 I find an old photograph and see your smile...... 53 I forwarded a poem to her by email this morning...... 89 I hoped, that with the brave and strong ...... 57 I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words ...... 13 I know very well there is no escape from grief...... 63 I know you love me, but I've gone where rose petals are my pillow ...... 59 I look to Thee in every need, and never look in vain...... 51 I never go to a funeral without thinking of this miracle of transformation ...... 71 I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year ...... 42 I share with you the agony of your grief...... 70 I strove with none, for none was worth my strife...... 38 I think no matter where you stray...... 20 I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above ...... 56 www.thelightbeyond.com 145

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills...... 56 I will not die an unlived life...... 57 I’ll lend you for a little time a child of mine, He said ...... 120 I’m going your way, so let us go hand in hand...... 62 I’m here for a short visit only...... 51 If all the skies were sunshine...... 49 If I should die (and die I must) please let it be in spring...... 54 If I should die and leave you here awhile...... 125 If I should die, think only this of me...... 104 If I should ever leave you whom I love...... 122 If I should go before the rest of you ...... 50 I'm thinking, Dad, that soon, maybe, we'll meet...... 52 In a cemetery once, an old one in New England ...... 101 In deepest yin, the world has slid...... 52 In the midst of life we are in death ...... 54 In the presence of Life, we say NO to Death ...... 63 Into the darkness and warmth of the earth ...... 55 It is not growing like a tree...... 55 It is often in sorrow that our lives are taught their sweetest songs...... 72 It is worthwhile for me to live and bravely fight ...... 121 It seemeth such a little way to me...... 18 It shouldn’t seem remarkable, but still it does...... 95 Know that the love which blooms inside you is stronger than fear...... 69 Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth ...... 93 Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us...... 61 Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom ...... 60 Lend me your hope for a while ...... 18 Let me die, working ...... 62 Let me sleep, for my soul is intoxicated with love...... 14 Let there be light!...... 21 Let this be a time of thanksgiving for a life lived ...... 119 Let us endeavor to live so that when we come to die ...... 62 Life as a whole never takes death seriously ...... 64 Life is short and we have never too much time...... 17 Life is too brief between the budding and the falling leaf ...... 64 Life! We have been long together...... 65 Like a dewdrop kissed off by the sun’s morning beams ...... 85 Like dew drops on a lotus leaf ...... 65 Like the leaves in their generations, such is the race of men ...... 51 Living you made it goodlier to live...... 123 Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy ...... 68 Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike...... 11 May the Lord be close to you in this time of sorrow...... 70 May the roads rise up to meet you ...... 70 Most people, though, manage to make their way through ...... 28 My grief, I find, is not desolation or rebellion...... 9 Mysterious death! who in a single hour ...... 124 Nearer, my God, to Thee...... 73 Never did I want so much for you ...... 74 www.thelightbeyond.com 146

Never more will the wind cherish you again...... 49 No coward soul is mine ...... 76 No funeral gloom, my dears, when I am gone ...... 77 No single thing abides; but all things flow...... 77 Not, how did he die, but how did he live? ...... 78 Now breathe great breaths of heaven ...... 78 Now I have lost you, I must scatter...... 38 O God, our help in ages past...... 80 O God, whose ways are hidden...... 81 O help us to think wisely...... 81 O may I join the choir invisible ...... 82 O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay ...... 118 O who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs ...... 45 Oblivion, she said in a weary voice...... 102 Of course no one can help the suffering which comes in bereavement...... 25 Often when the heart is torn with sorrow ...... 79 Oh all the time that e’er I spent, I spent it in good company ...... 87 Oh Mother Earth, Father Sky...... 71 Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth...... 47 Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe ...... 81 Old men forget! Aye! It may well be so ...... 129 Our revels now are ended ...... 86 Out of the dusk a shadow...... 37 Out of their sorrow shall come understanding ...... 86 Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning...... 50 Remember me when I am gone away ...... 96 Rise up slowly, Angel ...... 99 She passed away like morning dew ...... 34 She was so small, so beautiful ...... 91 Since I lost you, my darling, the sky has come near...... 35 Some things will never change. Some things will always be the same...... 106 Something quite unexpected has happened...... 33 Sometimes only one person is missing ...... 84 Sorrow cannot be fought and overcome...... 111 Sorrow like a ceaseless rain beats upon my heart ...... 110 Sorrow turns out to be not a state but a process ...... 40 Speak my name softly after I have gone ...... 5 Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone ...... 41 Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me...... 23 Taking shelter in the dead is death itself ...... 113 Tell me not, in mournful numbers ...... 94 The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth ...... 40 The bustle in a house the morning after death ...... 20 The chief pang of most troubles ...... 86 The clock of life is wound but once...... 21 The Clouds that gather round the setting sun...... 118 The day is ending ...... 6 The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended ...... 24 The flame of thy brave soul, that shot such heat and light...... 35 www.thelightbeyond.com 147

The grief that death brings is, of course, not all of one level...... 103 The laws of life and death are as they should be...... 5 The life that I have is all that I have ...... 65 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want ...... 68 The plants, who teach me all I know...... 88 The rugged old Norsemen spoke of death as Heimgang: home-going...... 98 The scarlet flower, with never a sister leaf...... 20 The snow melts on the mountain...... 108 The south-wind brings life, sunshine and desire...... 118 The trees are coming into leaf ...... 125 The world's an Inn; and I her guest...... 85 There are no times in life when opportunity...... 125 There are stars whose light shines on the face of the earth ...... 111 There is in God (some say) ...... 75 There is no death! The stars go down ...... 115 There is no grief which time does not lessen or soften...... 46 They are not gone who pass beyond the clasp of hand ...... 116 They are not long, the weeping and the laughter...... 127 They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock ...... 34 They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old ...... 39 This existence of ours is as transient as autumn clouds...... 116 This is the last year...... 59 This is what youth must figure out ...... 135 Those who are gone you love...... 117 Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief ...... 128 Though I am dead, grieve not with tears ...... 77 Through the morning mist you reached out ...... 121 Time does not bring relief; you all have lied...... 119 To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing ...... 83 To everything there is a season...... 120 Under the wide and starry sky, dig the grave and let me lie ...... 98 We are always saying farewell in this world...... 11 We are so apt to see only what souls go from...... 50 We bereaved are not alone ...... 127 We cannot judge a biography by its length...... 127 We do not recover from the death of a loved one...... 113 We grow accustomed to the Dark...... 128 We laid him in a cool and shadowed grove ...... 110 We live, we are elected now by time ...... 5 We must think of the dead as alive and joyful...... 101 We struggle against death with all our force...... 122 We were together only a little while ...... 84 Weep not, child, weep not, my darling...... 84 What ceremony can we fit you into now? ...... 39 What delightful hosts are they, Life and Love!...... 87 What is it to die but to stand naked in the wind...... 130 What is it, when we mourn and grieve and cry ...... 16 What though the radiance which was once so bright...... 129 What will you give when death knocks at your door? ...... 130 www.thelightbeyond.com 148

When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars ...... 100 When I am dead, my dearest...... 130 When I come to the end of the road ...... 71 When I die and leave behind this earth I love...... 132 When I die give what's left of me away...... 131 When life as opening buds is sweet ...... 117 When my hour is come let no teardrop fall ...... 134 When people suffer a great shock, like death...... 95 When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay ...... 9 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought...... 109 When we can live fully in the present ...... 61 When we finally know we are dying...... 134 When you come to the end of a perfect day ...... 88 Why do we claim that the world beyond death is a world without terrors?...... 75 Yes, faith is a goodly anchor...... 7 You can shed tears that she is gone ...... 102 Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding ...... 84

Index of themes

To get the most out of this book and find the perfect poem or reading for your situation, the best thing to do is to sit down and browse through the compilation until you find something which really resonates with you. However, we know that some people won’t have the time or the inclination to do this (and it’s hard when your eyes are blurred with tears), so we’ve compiled a brief index of poems to suit a particular situation.

These selections are not exhaustive; many more in the book may also be suitable.

Death of a child

After The Burial, 7 At A Child’s Grave, 13 Death Has Taken Thee Too, 26 Early Death, 34 Epitaph Upon A Child That Died, 36 For a Child Born Dead, 39 It Is Not Growing Like A Tree, 55 Let Us Offer Them Back, 63 Nature, 73 Now Breathe Great Breaths Of Heaven, 78 On The Death Of A Child, 85 Prayer For A Baby Who Died, 91 Rise Up Slowly, Angel, 99 To All Parents, 120

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Death of a parent

A Poem For My Friend Whose Mother Is Near Death, 89 Eden Rock, 34 I'm Thinking That Soon, Maybe, We'll Meet, 52 The Green Door, 44

Death of a spouse or partner

Death Is Nothing At All, 27 Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep, 32 Elegy, 35 Farewell, Sweet Dust, 38 Funeral Blues, 41 Good-Night, 43 Let Us Offer Them Back, 63 No Funeral Gloom, 77 On Dying, 83 Only A Little While, 84 Remember Me When I Am Gone Away, 96 She Is Gone, 102 She Speaks Of Death, 102 Sonnets From The Portuguese, 109 Stars Whose Light Shines, 111 Surviving Death, 113 Testament, 115 The Life That I Have, 65 The Widower, 135 To Those I Love, 122

For those who died after a long life

A Little Piece Of Lois, 66 A Thought On Death, 117 Crossing The Bar, 23 Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, 31 Gestalt At Sixty, 42 Nature, 73 Old Age Flowing Free, 81 Sixty-Eighth Birthday, 103 The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended, 24 The Green Door, 44 Transfiguration, 124 We Need Not Fear The Coming Of The Dark, 129 Youth And Age, 135

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For those who died by suicide

Borrowed Hope, 18 Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep, 32 Make Me Brave For Life, 69 Prayer For Those Who Have Committed Suicide, 93 Requiem, 98 Surviving Death, 113 When I Die And Leave Behind, 132

For those who died too young

For The Fallen, 39 Often When The Heart Is Torn With Sorrow, 79 We Cannot Judge, 127

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How else can we help you?

On our website, www.thelightbeyond.com, we have many different resources to help the bereaved on their journey through grief. Below are just some of them:

If you might find our services useful, then we hope to see you on the site one day. In the meantime, take good care, and look after yourself as well as the others around you.

And remember, although it may not seem like it right now: this, too, will pass.

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