Poetry

These are just a few of our choices. There are many others you can choose from.

The Tide Recedes

The tide recedes, but leaves behind
Bright seashells on the sand.
The sun goes down but gentle warmth
Still lingers on the land.
The music stops and yet it lingers on
In sweet refrain.
For every joy that passes
Something beautiful remains.
M D Hughes

Animals

Have you forgotten what we were like then
When we were still first rate
And the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

It’s no use to worry about Time
But we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners

The whole pasture looked like our meal
we didnt need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

I wouldn’t want to be faster
Or greener than now if you were with me
O you were the best of all my days
Frank O’Hara

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

When I have fears

When I have fears, as Keats had fears,
Of the moment I’ll cease to be
I console myself with vanished years
Remembered laughter, remembered tears,
And the peace of the changing sea.

When I feel sad, as Keats felt sad
That my life is so nearly done
It gives me comfort to dwell upon
Remembered friends who are dead and gone
And the jokes we had and the fun.
How happy they are I cannot know,
But happy am I who loved them so.
Noel Coward

If l Should Never See the Moon Again

If I should never see the moon again
Rising red gold across the harvest fields,
Or feel the stinging of soft April rain,
As the brown earth her bidden treasures yields.

If I should never taste the salt sea spray
As the ship beats her course against the breeze,
Or smell the dog rose and the new-mown hay,
Or moss and primrose beneath the trees.

If I should never hear the thrushes wake
Long before sunrise in the glimmering dawn,
Or watch the huge Atlantic rollers break ;
against the rugged cliffs in baffling scorn.

If I have said goodbye to stream and wood,
To the wide ocean and the green clad hill,
I know that He who made this world so good
Has somewhere made a Heaven better still.
This bear I witness with my latest breath.
Knowing the love of God, I fear not death.
Major Malcolm Boyle

Sea Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running
tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume and the seagulls
crying.

I must go down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life.
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like whetted knife:
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
John Masefield

Love Doesn’t Ends with Dying

Love doesn’t end with dying
Or leave with the last breath.

For someone you’ve loved deeply,
Love doesn’t end with death.
John Addey

Life Goes On

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

The Golden Chain of Friendship

Friendship is a Golden Chain,
The links are friends so dear,
And like a rare and precious jewel
It’s treasured more each year …

It’s clasped together firmly
With a love that’s deep and true,
And it’s rich with happy memories
And fond recollections, too …

Time can’t destroy its beauty
For, as long as memory lives,
Years can’t erase the pleasure
That the joy of friendship gives …

For friendship is a priceless gift
That can’t be bought or sold,
But to have an understanding friend
Is worth far more than gold …

And the Golden Chain of Friendship
Is a strong and blessed tie
Binding kindred hearts together
As the years go passing by.
Anon

Gaelic prayer

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rains fall softly upon your fields,
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.
Anon

Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
Anon

Epitaph on a Friend

An honest man lies here 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

After Glow

I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one.
I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when
life is done.
I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down
the ways,
Of happy times and laughing times and bright
and sunny days.
I’d like the tears of those who grieve,
to dry before the sun Of happy memories
That I leave when life is done.
Anon

If I Be the First of Us to Die

If I be the first of us to die,
Let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving.
There is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is part of life,
The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey,
The moments shared, the mysteries explored,
The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing,
Each giving and each taking,

These are not flowers that fade,
Nor trees that fall and crumble,
Nor are they stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand
And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.
What we were, we are.
What we had, we have.
A conjoined past imperishably present.

So when you walk the woods where once we walked together
And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,
And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,be still.
Close your eyes.
Breathe.
Listen for my footfall in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you.
Nicholas Evans