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The Best 10 Poems For Cremation
This assortment is dedicated to Poems for Cremation, specifically curated for those seeking fitting verses for a cremation ceremony. These poems gracefully encapsulate the profound emotions associated with saying final goodbyes, making them suitable for anyone tasked with reading at such an event. The poems listed here provide a respectful acknowledgment of the transformative journey from physical presence to enduring memory.
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1) 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.)
The imagery of wafting and gliding noiselessly forth can be interpreted as a metaphor for the soul's release during cremation, making the poem fitting for this category.
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2) The Old Farmer's Prayer
Author: Steve Watkins
Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.
Time just keeps moving on,
Many years have come and gone,
But I grow older without regret,
My hopes are in what may come yet.
On the farm, I work each day,
This is where I wish to stay,
I watch the seeds each season sprout,
From the soil as the plants rise out.
I study Nature and I learn,
To know the earth and feel her turn,
I love her dearly and all the seasons,
For I have learned her secret reasons.
All that will live is in the bosom of Earth,
She is the loving mother of all birth,
But all that lives must pass away,
And go back again to her someday.
My life too will pass from Earth,
But do not grieve, I say, there will be other birth,
When my body is old and all spent,
And my soul to Heaven has went.
Please compost and spread me on this plain,
So my body Mother Earth can claim,
That is where I wish to be,
Then Nature can nourish new life with me.
So do not grieve and weep for me,
I did not leave, I only sleep,
I am with the soil here below,
Where I can nourish life of beauty and glow.
Here I can help the falling rain,
Grow golden fields of ripening grain,
From here I can join the winds that blow,
And meet the softly falling snow.
Here I can help the sun’s warming light,
Grow food for birds of gliding flight,
I can be in the beautiful flowers of spring,
And in every other lovely thing.
So do not weep and cry for me,
I am here, I do not die.
The imagery of wafting and gliding noiselessly forth can be interpreted as a metaphor for the soul's release during cremation, making the poem fitting for this category.
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3) Remember Me - I Will Live Forever
Author: Robert Test
Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.
The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital; busily occupied with the living and the dying. At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.
When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my deathbed. Let it be called the bed of life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman.
Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.
Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.
Give my kidneys to the one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.
Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk.Explore every corner of my brain.
Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window.
Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weakness and all prejudice against my fellow man.
Give my sins to the devil. Give my soul to God. If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.
This poem refers to the process of cremation and scattering of ashes, making it a relevant choice for a cremation service.
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4) Woodland Burial
Author: Pam Ayres
Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.
Don’t lay me in some gloomy churchyard shaded by a wall
Where the dust of ancient bones has spread a dryness over all,
Lay me in some leafy loam where, sheltered from the cold
Little seeds investigate and tender leaves unfold.
There kindly and affectionately, plant a native tree
To grow resplendent before God and hold some part of me.
The roots will not disturb me as they went their peaceful way
To build the fine and bountiful, from closure and decay.
To seek their small requirements so that when their work is done
I’ll be tall and standing strongly in the beauty of the sun.
Although the poem focuses on burial, its theme of returning to nature and becoming one with a tree can also be applicable to the scattering of ashes in a natural setting, making it related to this category.
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5) Turn Again To Life
Author: Mary Lee Hall
Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.
If I should die and leave you here a while,
Be not like others sore undone,
Who keep long vigil by the silent dust.
For my sake turn again to life and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort other hearts than thine.
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine
And I perchance may therein comfort you.
The poem can be read at a cremation service to provide comfort to those attending.
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6) Elegy On Thyrza
Author: Lord Byron
Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.
And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And forms so soft and charms so rare
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.
I will not ask where thou liest low
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers and weeds at will may grow
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I loved and long must love
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell
'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.
Yet did I love thee to the last,
As fervently as thou
Who didst not change through all the past
And canst not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.
The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lours
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass'd away
I might have watch'd through long decay.
The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away.
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change from foul to fair.
I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.
As once I wept if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed
To think I was not near, to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed:
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.
Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.
The poem's reflection on the mortality of the body and the enduring nature of love and memory can be a meaningful tribute to someone whose ashes are being interred or scattered.
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7) Memories
Author: John Greenleaf Whittier
Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.
A beautiful and happy girl,
With step as light as summer air,
Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl,
Shadowed by many a careless curl
Of unconfined and flowing hair;
A seeming child in everything,
Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms,
As Nature wears the smile of Spring
When sinking into Summer's arms.
A mind rejoicing in the light
Which melted through its graceful bower,
Leaf after leaf, dew-moist and bright,
And stainless in its holy white,
Unfolding like a morning flower
A heart, which, like a fine-toned lute,
With every breath of feeling woke,
And, even when the tongue was mute,
From eye and lip in music spoke.
How thrills once more the lengthening chain
Of memory, at the thought of thee!
Old hopes which long in dust have lain
Old dreams, come thronging back again,
And boyhood lives again in me;
I feel its glow upon my cheek,
Its fulness of the heart is mine,
As when I leaned to hear thee speak,
Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.
I hear again thy low replies,
I feel thy arm within my own,
And timidly again uprise
The fringed lids of hazel eyes,
With soft brown tresses overblown.
Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,
Of moonlit wave and willowy way,
Of stars and flowers, and dewy leaves,
And smiles and tones more dear than they!
Ere this, thy quiet eye hath smiled
My picture of thy youth to see,
When, half a woman, half a child,
Thy very artlessness beguiled,
And folly's self seemed wise in thee;
I too can smile, when o'er that hour
The lights of memory backward stream,
Yet feel the while that manhood's power
Is vainer than my boyhood's dream.
Years have passed on, and left their trace,
Of graver care and deeper thought;
And unto me the calm, cold face
Of manhood, and to thee the grace
Of woman's pensive beauty brought.
More wide, perchance, for blame than praise,
The school-boy's humble name has flown;
Thine, in the green and quiet ways
Of unobtrusive goodness known.
And wider yet in thought and deed
Diverge our pathways, one in youth;
Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,
While answers to my spirit's need
The Derby dalesman's simple truth.
For thee, the priestly rite and prayer,
And holy day, and solemn psalm;
For me, the silent reverence where
My brethren gather, slow and calm.
Yet hath thy spirit left on me
An impress Time has worn not out,
And something of myself in thee,
A shadow from the past, I see,
Lingering, even yet, thy way about;
Not wholly can the heart unlearn
That lesson of its better hours,
Not yet has Time's dull footstep worn
To common dust that path of flowers.
Thus, while at times before our eyes
The shadows melt, and fall apart,
And, smiling through them, round us lies
The warm light of our morning skies,
The Indian Summer of the heart!
In secret sympathies of mind,
In founts of feeling which retain
Their pure, fresh flow, we yet may find
Our early dreams not wholly vai
This poem can be read during a cremation service to help mourners remember the life and memories of the deceased before their ashes are scattered or interred.
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8) Think Of Me
Author: Emilie Lauren Jones
Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.
Don’t think of me in black and grey
but as forests and the oceans spray,
lemons ripening in the sun,
rivers racing then calm and still.
Remember redness in my cheeks
after standing in the breeze
or from long walks in the snow -
Remember me, the one you know.
Don’t dream of me in black and grey
think of me as strawberries,
and raindrops glistening in the trees.
Remember orange in my laugh,
and pansies, pinks and violets.
Don’t picture me in black and grey,
that’s not who I was or am today.
Don’t see me as a ghostly shadow,
or something that you just imagine,
don’t see me as black and grey,
not now, tomorrow or yesterday.
Remember gold in my kisses,
turquoise music, silver wishes,
beating hearts as we cuddled,
aqua reflections in purple puddles.
All I ask – remember me,
who I was and will still be.
The poem does not mention burial or cremation directly but focuses on remembering the person, making it suitable for a cremation service
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9) My Journey's Just Begun
Author: Ellen Brenneman
Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.
Don't think of me as gone away
My journey's just begun
Life holds so many facets
This earth is but one
Just think of me as resting
From the sorrows and the tears
In a place of warmth and comfort
Where there are no days and years
Think of how I must be wishing
That you could know today
How nothing but your sadness
Can really go away
And think of me as living
In the hearts of those I touched
For nothing loved is ever lost
And I know I was loved so much
The line "think of me as resting" can be interpreted as a reference to cremation, where the ashes are often referred to as the remains or the resting place.
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10) I Wish I Knew
Author: Donna Ashworth
Please note the audio recording may not exactly match the text version as poems are sometimes tailored/personalised.
I wish I knew that life was short,
And time would never wait.
I wish I knew that love was rare,
And not to leave it to fate.
The acknowledgement of the impermanence of life and the fleeting nature of time in this poem can resonate with those who have chosen cremation as a means of honoring their loved one's memory.
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