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The Best 10 Celebration Of Life Poems

In this selection, you will find Celebration of Life poems, chosen to help honor the memory of a loved one during a funeral or memorial service. These powerful verses encapsulate the joy, love, and light that life brings, serving as a fitting tribute. The poems listed here can assist those tasked with sharing words that capture the essence of the life lived and the impact it made on those left behind.

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1) There Are No Boring People In This World

Author: Yevgeny Yevtushenko

 Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.

There are no boring people in this world. Each fate is like the history of a planet. And no two planets are alike at all. Each is distinct – you simply can’t compare it. If someone lived without attracting notice and made a friend of their obscurity – then their uniqueness was precisely this. Their very plainness made them interesting. Each person has a world that’s all their own. Each of those worlds must have its finest moment and each must have its hour of bitter torment – and yet, to us, both hours remain unknown. When people die, they do not die alone. They die along with their first kiss, first combat. They take away their first day in the snow … All gone, all gone – there’s just no way to stop it. There may be much that’s fated to remain, but something – something leaves us all the same. The rules are cruel, the game nightmarish – it isn’t people but whole worlds that perish.

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This poem highlights the uniqueness and individuality of every person, making it suitable for a celebration of life service.

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2) My Funeral

Author: Wendy Cope

 Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.

I hope I can trust you, friends, not to use our relationship As an excuse for an unsolicited ego-trip. I have seen enough of them at funerals and they make me cross. At this one, though deceased, I aim to be the boss. If you are asked to talk about me for five minutes, please do not go on for eight. There is a strict timetable at the crematorium and nobody wants to be late. If invited to read a poem, just read the bloody poem. If requested To sing a song, just sing it, as suggested, And don’t say anything. Though I will not be there, Glancing pointedly at my watch and fixing the speaker with a malevolent stare. Remember that this was how I always reacted When I felt that anybody’s speech, sermon or poetry reading was becoming too protracted. Yes, I was intolerant, and not always polite And if there aren’t many people at my funeral, it will serve me right.

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This poem highlights the uniqueness and individuality of every person, making it suitable for a celebration of life service.

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3) They Sit Together On The Porch

Author: Wendell Berry

 Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.

They sit together on the porch, the dark Almost fallen, the house behind them dark. Their supper done with, they have washed and dried The dishes–only two plates now, two glasses, Two knives, two forks, two spoons–small work for two. She sits with her hands folded in her lap, At rest. They do not speak, And when they speak at last it is to say What each one knows the other knows. They have One mind between them, now, that finally For all its knowing will not exactly know Which one goes first through the dark doorway, bidding Goodnight, and which sits on a while alone.

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The poem celebrates the simple, intimate moments shared by two people, emphasizing the importance of companionship in life.

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4) Finis

Author: Walter Savage Landor

 Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.

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.

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The poem reflects on the speaker's experiences in life, making it fitting for a celebration of life service.

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5) O Captain! My Captain!

Author: Walt Whitman's

 Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

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The poem celebrates the end of a challenging journey and the achievements of the Captain, making it suitable for commemorating the life of the deceased.

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6) Good-Bye, My Fancy!

Author: Walt Whitman

 Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.

Good-bye my Fancy! Farewell dear mate, dear love! I‘m going away, I know not where, Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again, So Good-bye my Fancy. Now for my last – let me look back a moment; The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me, Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping. Long have we lived, joy‘d, carress‘d together; Delightful! – now separation – Good-bye my Fancy. Yet let me not be too hasty, Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter‘d, become really blended into one; Then if we die we die together, (Yes, we‘ll remain one,) If we go anywhere we‘ll go together to meet what happens, May-be we‘ll be better off and blither, and learn something, May-be it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs, (who knows?) May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing, turning – so now finally, Good-bye – and hail! my Fancy.

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The poem reflects on a life lived together and the possibility of a continued journey, making it suitable for a celebration of life service.

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7) Funeral Blues

Author: W.H. Auden

 Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.

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.

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Despite the sadness, the poem also celebrates the love and connection shared with the deceased, making it a fitting choice for a celebration of life.

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8) Celebrating A Life-In Words Of One Syllable

Author: Tony Sims

 Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.

Strange that it should be so, Be born and live and grow, Watch weird new worlds go by In the blink of an eye. Wake up to days of gold, And shake when nights grow cold, Hear frogs plop in still ponds Fringed by ranks of tall wands, And quake as mad March mirth Stirs seeds in new warmed earth To birth a Spring, and spray White blooms in a green May. With day's drum beat is done, When dark clouds hide the sun, Turn to cast an awed eye On gems spilt in the sky. Strange that it should be so- This non stop ebb and flow, Fixed in a flux of ghost And flint and blood-yet most Strange of all, though our din Of brave words is lost in A deaf wind's rise and fall- The breath to say it all.

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The poem focuses on the beauty and brevity of life, making it suitable for a celebration of life.

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9) You Never Said Goodbye

Author: Tomisha Michelle Marrie Rowe

 Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.

You never said I’m leaving You never said goodbye. You were gone before I knew it, And only God knew why. A million times I needed you, A million times I cried. If love alone could have saved you, You never would have died. In life I loved you dearly, In death I love you still. In my heart you hold a place, That no one could ever fill. It broke my heart to lose you, But you didn’t go alone For part of me went with you, The day God took you home.

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The poem acknowledges the love shared in life and continues even in death.

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10) Little Gidding (From Four Quartets)

Author: T.S Elliot

 Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flame are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.

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The poem speaks about exploration and the discovery of the self, making it a fitting tribute to celebrate a person's life and journey.

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