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The Best 10 Poems For Funerals Non Religious

Navigating the path of grief and saying goodbye to a loved one can be a challenging journey. As such, we provide a selection of non-religious funeral readings to help express your deepest sentiments during these significant moments. Our compilation includes a diverse range of poems for funerals, specifically curated for those who prefer a secular approach. These non-religious funeral readings and humanist funeral poems have been carefully selected to cater to various emotions and thoughts, allowing you to communicate heartfelt messages during the farewell. Regardless of whether you're tasked with delivering a eulogy or participating in a memorial service, our diverse compilation of unique and expressive poems will offer the right words to remember your loved one, their life, and their impact.

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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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The poem does not reference any specific religious beliefs, making it appropriate for non-religious funeral services.

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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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The poem does not reference any specific religious beliefs, making it appropriate for non-religious funeral services.

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3) Remembrance

Author: William Shakespeare

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

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe, And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight. Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoanéd moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before: --But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

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The poem does not contain explicit religious references, making it suitable for non-religious funeral services.

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4) Like As The Waves Make Towards The Pebbled Shore

Author: William Shakespeare

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

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end, Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. Nativity, once in the main of light, Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown‘d, Crooked eclipses ‗gainst his glory fight, And Time, that gave, doth now his gift confound. Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth, And delves the parallels in beauty‘s brow; Feels on the rarities of nature‘s truth, And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow. And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

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The poem does not contain explicit religious references, making it suitable for non-religious funeral services.

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5) 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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The poem does not contain religious references, making it suitable for non-religious funeral services.

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6) 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 does not reference any religious themes, making it suitable for non-religious funerals.

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7) 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 be used as a non-religious funeral poem due to its focus on death without any religious references.

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8) 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 does not contain any religious themes, making it appropriate for non-religious funeral services.

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9) 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 does not contain any specific religious references or themes, making it appropriate for non-religious funeral ceremonies.

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10) 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 does not reference any specific religious beliefs, making it appropriate for non-religious funeral services.

Read more about this poem