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gumbud
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24-07-2014, 08:07 AM
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Readings for the Grave

As many of us are approaching the remaining decades of our lives some of us may have cast a thought of our final farewells others not of course. Recently I came across this very thoughtful poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye who died in 2004 - I found it quite uplifting

[there are other versions but this I prefer]

"Do not stand at my grave and weep" by Mary Elizabeth Frye


Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die
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24-07-2014, 08:28 AM
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Re: Readings for the Grave

Hi GUMBUD.
I found your choice comforting for my dad died in
1999 & we used your poem. I know where his remains are, but his spirit lives on in me, he is not in that grave.

I enjoy the WAR POETS writings of 1914-1918. I can identify with the period because in the research of my family history I have found great detail of my male forbears activities in uniform, their regiments, their movements, plus a good deal of objects and records, ephemera which I have arranged in a scrapbook for future generations to read.


Rupert Brooke; 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 in 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.
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24-07-2014, 10:09 AM
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Re: Readings for the Grave

I like both of those and this one by Christina Rossetti:-


Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.


But by far my favourite poem for/about/dealing with death is this:-

Bilbo's Last Song

by J R R Tolkien

Day is ended, dim my eyes,
but journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship's beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
the wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
beneath the ever-bending sky,
but islands lie behind the Sun
that I shall raise ere all is done;
lands there are to west of West,
where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I'll find the heavens fair and free,
and beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
and fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the Star above my mast!

For me, at least, it says it all.
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24-07-2014, 10:57 AM
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Re: Readings for the Grave

lovely thoughts robert J and silver T - I am also a fan of Out of Africa so always love the poem read in the film at Denice Finch-hattons' funeral

To an Athlete Dying Young
by A.E. Houseman (1859-1936)

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we brought you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night had shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honors out,
Runners whom reown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before it echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round theat early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengtless dead,
And find to unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
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24-07-2014, 12:30 PM
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Re: Readings for the Grave

I had a lump in my throat reading them all, but especially liked Bilbo's.
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24-07-2014, 12:38 PM
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Re: Readings for the Grave

Not a reading, but a wee story.

A few years ago my friend died. She was 50. Always full of fun and loved going out on the town. She'd have her music on while she was getting ready to go out. She especially liked the song "You're gorgeous,I'd do anything for you".

We all stood at the grave side. Sombre and sad. All of a sudden music came from the hearse. Oh my god, I thought, someone's accidentally turned the radio on!! Then - blaring from the hearse was " You're gorgeous " She had arranged for it to be played then. We all laughed and her daughter looked up to the sky and said, laughingly "trust you mum!!". It still makes me smile when I think about it.
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24-07-2014, 02:01 PM
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Re: Readings for the Grave

My mum & dad were married for53 years, they were very close. My dad adored my mum even though she was prone to constant nagging at him. When he died in 1999 she was bereft , having realised how she had treated him so badly on occasion , for she had a tterrible temper.

A few days after my dad died ,he appeared to me in a dream/vision whatever it was, it was very real to me.

“Hiya Rob, it’s great up here, I can smoke, take naps, you’ll love it. I have all my prize budgies from way back & I never have to clean them out.
How’s your mum?
I answered, truthfully “Not so good POP!”
“Oh dear, you don’t think she’s coming up here any time soon do you?”
“Nah, don’t worry, she is as strong as an ox” I reassured him. In the event mum survived him by 12 years.
She passed away suddenly sat in her favourite chair waiting for a cup of tea. Mum had been in terrible pain for years but her face changed, she looked up, smiled and lifted up her arms as if welcoming someone. Then in an instant she was gone from us..
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24-07-2014, 02:52 PM
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Re: Readings for the Grave

RJ thank you for sharing that story.
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24-07-2014, 10:38 PM
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Re: Readings for the Grave

I don't think I would pick this one for myself it is very sad but from a great film and an immediate heart felt feeling from those left behind. I remember vividly these very thoughts expressed by my mother for many months after my fathers death

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 woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H. Auden
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24-07-2014, 11:57 PM
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Re: Readings for the Grave

This is my favourite and brings great comfort to me since losing my mum, I know the words are what she would have said to me..

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped away
into the next room.

I am I,
and you are you;
whatever we were to each other,
that, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way
which you always used,
put no difference in your tone,
wear no forced air
of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we shared together.
Let my name ever be
the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all
that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.

All is well.
 
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