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Jan 29, 2024 · When someone we care about dies, peace may seem a long way off in the future. But it needn’t be, as this poem shows. If we seek not to resist the passing, but to see it as a grand resolution to something beautiful – a life – we can have peace even as a loved one drifts away.
- Farewell by Anne Brontë. ‘Farewell’ is a personal poem, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t suitable for a wide variety of readers to read and connect to. Throughout the quatrains of the poem, the speaker reminisces on the time they spent with “you.”
- The Gardener XLI: Peace, My Heart by Rabindranath Tagore. ‘The Gardener XLI: Peace, My Heart’ is one of the shortest poems on this list. It is addressed to the speaker’s heart, imploring it to let this time be one of “completeness” rather than grief.
- Crossing the Bar by Alfred Lord Tennyson. ‘Crossing the Bar’ was composed as one of his last poems, sometime in 1889, just three years before his death, and is suggestive, through the first-person pronouns, that Tennyson was considering his own mortality.
- In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred Lord Tennyson. ‘In Memoriam, A.H.H.’ is often considered Alfred Lord Tennyson’s masterpiece. It was written after the death of his close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly at the age of 22.
Finding a way to express our emotions in the face of losing a loved one can feel like an impossible task. That's where funeral poems come in. These beautifully written verses offer a way to express the complex emotions of grief, love, and remembrance in a deeply personal and poignant manner.
Whether through Mary Elizabeth Frye's timeless verses, David Harkins' gentle wisdom, or Robert Louis Stevenson's serene imagery, these poems offer a sanctuary where we can seek solace and find healing. May they serve as a reminder that peace can be found, even in the shadows of death.
They hide, hunker down, and “lumber after safety”. The metaphor compares the death of loved ones to the monumental shifts that occur when large and powerful trees fall in the forest. As the poem progresses she moves on to directly speak about “great souls” and how human beings react to loss.
Remembrance – whether it’s recalling or remembering a past loved one, or commemorating someone who has passed away – has always been a big theme in poetry, so choosing just ten poems proved a challenge. We hope you enjoy them. 1. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30.
Whether you are struggling to find the perfect words to say at a funeral, feel grief for someone dear to you who has passed away, or are curious about the human reaction to loss, these poems about the death of a loved one can offer you insight, peace, and understanding.
