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The Best 10 Modern Funeral Poems

This page highlights Modern Funeral Poems, featuring contemporary verses that convey timeless sentiments of loss and remembrance. These poems, penned by modern voices, offer fresh perspectives on the themes of grief, memory, and the enduring bonds of love. For those selected to read at a funeral or memorial service, the poems included here offer a modern, resonant tribute to the departed, addressing the shared human experience of loss in a compelling and relatable manner.

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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 has a contemporary feel and focuses on the individuality of each person, making it a fitting choice for a modern funeral service.

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2) The Triumph Of Death

Author: William Shakespeare

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

No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world, that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell; Nay, if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it; for I love you so, That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot If thinking on me then should make you woe. O if, I say, you look upon this verse When I perhaps compounded am with clay Do not so much as my poor name rehearse, But let your love even with my life decay; Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone.

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This poem has a contemporary feel and focuses on the individuality of each person, making it a fitting choice for a modern funeral service.

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3) On His Own Death

Author: Walter Savage Landor

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

Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear: Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.

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This poem could also be classified as a modern funeral poem due to its non-traditional approach to the subject of death.

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4) The Last Invocation

Author: Walt Whitman

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

At the last, tenderly, From the walls of the powerful fortress‘d house, From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors, Let me be wafted. Let me glide noiselessly forth; With the key of softness unlock the locks – with a whisper, Set ope the doors O soul. Tenderly – be not impatient, (Strong is your hold O mortal flesh, Strong is your hold O love.)

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The poem's language and themes are accessible and relatable, making it suitable for contemporary funerals.

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5) 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's introspective and accepting tone gives it a contemporary feel, making it a fitting choice for a modern funeral service.

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6) Darest Thou Now O Soul

Author: Walt Whitman

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

Darest thou now O soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow? No map there, nor guide, Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. I know it not O soul, Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us, All waits undream‘d of in that region, that inaccessible land. Till when the ties loosen, All but the ties eternal, Time and Space, Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us. Then we burst forth, we float, In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them, Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul

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The poem's theme of the soul's journey into the unknown resonates with contemporary audiences, making it fitting for this category.

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7) 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's unique structure and focus on life's fleeting moments make it a fitting choice for a modern funeral.

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8) 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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As part of T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets," this poem is considered a modern classic, making it suitable for modern funerals.

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9) The Life

Author: Sir Francis Bacon

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

The World's a bubble, and the Life of Man Less than a span: In his conception wretched, from the womb So to the tomb; Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years With cares and fears. Who then to frail mortality shall trust, But limns on water, or but writes in dust. Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest, What life is best? Courts are but only superficial schools To dandle fools: The rural parts are turn'd into a den Of savage men: And where's a city from foul vice so free, But may be term'd the worst of all the three? Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed, Or pains his head: Those that live single, take it for a curse, Or do things worse: Some would have children: those that have them, moan Or wish them gone: What is it, then, to have, or have no wife, But single thraldom, or a double strife? Our own affections still at home to please Is a disease: To cross the seas to any foreign soil, Peril and toil: Wars with their noise affright us; when they cease, We are worse in peace;-- What then remains, but that we still should cry For being born, or, being born, to die

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Though not a contemporary poem, its exploration of the human experience and questioning of life's meaning can resonate with modern audiences, making it suitable for a modern funeral.

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10) Adonais

Author: Shelley

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Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — He hath awakened from the dream of life — ‘Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife Invulnerable nothings. — We decay Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief Convulse us and consume us day by day, And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay. The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! Follow where all is fled!—Rome's azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.

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The poem's language and imagery deviate from traditional religious themes, making it a suitable choice for a modern funeral

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