Poetry

Well, it went well today and was actually a good day overall. I did my reading really well (though I say so myself) and lots of people thanked me which was nice. I then no longer had any need to hold myself together so spent the rest of the service crying buckets. I got myself together afterwards though and had fun chatting to my cousins and drinking lots of champagne - apparently Grandpa's only two requests were that there should be no eulogy, and that we all had to have a good party! I even saw my Grannie laughing at one point which was lovely.

Anyway, the poems that we had in the service were so beautiful that I thought I'd reproduce them here. Grandpa's four children chose them and they really made the service. It was definitely the lovely words that made me cry so much! We had the Bible reading first and then the other poems in this order.

A passage from Tintern Abbey by Wordsworth
These beauteous forms
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration: feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; That blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened: that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

Let Evening Come by Jan Kenyon
Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn
moving up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chaffing as a woman takes up her needles and her yarn.
Let evening come.

Let dew collect in the hoe abandoned in the long grass.
Let the stars appear and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down.
Let the shed go black inside.
Let evening come.

To the bottle in a ditch,
to the scoop in the oats,
to the air in the lung,
let evening come.

Let it come as it will and don't be afraid.
God does not leave us comfortless.
So, let evening come.


By Henry Scott Holland
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 are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy ways you always used.
Put no difference into 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 effort,
without the ghost of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was;
there is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of your mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval,
Somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well.


You can shed tears that he is gone,
Or you can smile because he lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back,
Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see him,
Or your heart can be full of the love that you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember him and only that he is gone,
Or you can cherish his memory and let him live on.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn back,
Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love, and go on.