My Great Aunt died yesterday, and I am looking for a good poem to read at the wake. Any suggestions?

Question

My Great Aunt died yesterday, and I am looking for a good poem to read at the wake. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Just wanted to let you know how sorry I am for your loss, I think that you should find something that your Auntie loved and read that in her memory.

Answer 2

Deepest sympathy on your loss. Obviously she was an influence in your life and as a Great Aunt, it must have been one that was long and fulfilling. Hence the following poem may do honor to her and one that reminds we want to remember.

Celebrate

Consider death a celebration of life,

a time for family and friends to reminisce,

through celebration there is remembrance,

with sadness there is forgetfulness,

celebrate the life at death and remember.

Answer 3

The Rose of Battle by William Butler Yeats.

Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!

The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled

Above the tide of hours, trouble the air,

And God's bell buoyed to be the water's care;

While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band

With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand.

Turn if you may from battles never done,

I call, as they go by me one by one,

Danger no refuge holds, and war no peace,

For him who hears love sing and never cease,

Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:

But gather all for whom no love hath made

A woven silence, or but came to cast

A song into the air, and singing passed

To smile on the pale dawn; and gather you

Who have sougft more than is in rain or dew,

Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,

Or sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth,

Or comes in laughter from the sea's sad lips,

And wage God's battles in the long grey ships.

The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,

To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;

God's bell has claimed them by the little cry

Of their sad hearts, that may not live nor die.

Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!

You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled

Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring

The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.

Beauty grown sad with its eternity

Made you of us, and of the dim grey sea.

Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait,

For God has bid them share an equal fate;

And when at last, defeated in His wars,

They have gone down under the same white stars,

We shall no longer hear the little cry

Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.

Answer 4

Sorry for your loss.

I actually found this poem on this website a while ago. It's from the point of view from someone who has died.It might not be what you're looking for but I hope I helped.

(I don't know what it's called)

Do not stand at my grave and weep;

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glint on snow,

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand by my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

Answer 5

A couple of choices:

poem read at funeral of Queen Mother Elizabeth in 2002:

You can shed tears that she is gone

or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back

or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her

or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back

or you can do what she'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on. (By David Harkins)

OR

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her distined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.  (By George W. Meek - and often used by Hospice)