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 that 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 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 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 round the corner.
All is well.

Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)
Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral

"I'll lend you, for a little while, a child of mine," He said,
"For you to love 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 and his stay be brief."
"You'll have his lovely memories as solace for you grief."

"I cannot promise he will stay, as 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 the search for teachers true,"
"And from the throngs that crowd life's lands, I have selected you."

"Now will you give him all your love ------ not 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 the all the joy this child shall bring, the risk of grief we'll run,"

"And should the Angels call for him much sooner than we planned,"
"We'll brave the bitter grief that comes, and try to understand."

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 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

Shed not for her the bitter tear
Nor give the heart to vain regret
Tis but mere ashes that lie here
The gem that filled it sparkles yet

I am standing on the sea shore,
A ship sails in the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her
Till at last she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says:
"She is gone."

Gone! Where?
Gone from my sight that is all.
She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her
And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me,
not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says,
"She is gone",
There are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout:
"There she comes"
- and that is dying. An horizon and just the limit of our sight.
Lift us up, Oh Lord, that we may see further."

Your love will light my way,
your memory will ever be with me