from One Who Stays

    Amy Lowell

    How empty seems the town now you are gone!
    A wilderness of sad streets, where gaunt walls
    Hide nothing to desire; sunshine falls
    Eery, distorted, as it long had shone
    On white, dead faces tombed in halls of stone.
    The whir of motors, stricken through with calls
    Of playing boys, floats up at intervals;
    But all these noises blur to one long moan.
    What quest is worth pursuing? And how strange
    That other men still go accustomed ways!
    I hate their interest in the things they do.
    A spectre-horde repeating without change.

    from On the Beach at Night

    Walt Whitman

    Weep not, child,
    Weep not, my darling.
    With these kisses let me remove your tears,
    The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
    They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
    Jupiter shall emerge, be patience, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
    They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
    The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again they endure.
    The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.

    from Perfect Happiness

    Penelope Lively

    Loss clamped there every morning as she woke; it sat its grinding weight on her and rode her, like the old man of the sea. It roared in her ears when people talked to her so that frequently she did not hear what they said. It interrupted her when she spoke, so that she faltered in mid-sentence, lost track. A little less, now; remissions came and went. The days stalked by, taking her with them...
    During the early days and weeks of her solitude Frances had come to realise that grief like illness is unstable; it ebbs and flows in tides, it steals away to a distance then comes roaring back, it torments by deception. It plays games with time and with reality. On some mornings she would wake and Steven's presence was so distant and yet so reassuring that she thought herself purged; he seemed both absent and present, she felt close to him and at the same time freed, she thought that at last she was walking alone. And then, within hours she would be back once more in that dark trough: incredulous, raging, ground into her misery. Time, that should be linear, had become formless; mercurial and unreliable, it took her away from the moment of Steven's death and then flung her back beside it.

    from Rebecca

    Daphne Du Maurier

    When people suffer a great shock, like death, or the loss of a limb, I believe they don't feel it just at first. If your hand is taken from you, you don't know, for a few minutes, that your hand is gone. You go on feeling the fingers. You stretch and beat them on the air, one by one, shocked at my lack of emotion and this queer cold absence of distress. Little by little the feeling will come back to me, I said to myself, little but little I shall understand.

    From The Pilgrim's Progress

    John Bunyan

    I see myself now at the end of my journey; my toilsome days are ended. I am going now to see that head which was crowned with thorns, and that face which was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with Him in whose company I delight myself.
    I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of; and wherever I have seen the print of his shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my foot too. His name to me has been as a civet-box; yea, sweeter than all perfumes. His voice to me has been most sweet; and his countenance I have more desired than they that have most desired the light of the sun. His word I did use to gather for my food, and for antidotes against my faintings. He has held me, and has kept me from mine iniquities; yea, my steps hath he strengthened in his way.

    From The Prophet

    Kahlil Gibran

    Then Almitra spoke, saying, We would ask now of death. And he said: You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind onto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

    In the depths of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king? Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling? For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

    from The Rebecca Notebook

    Daphne Du Maurier

    The old adage, Time heals all wounds is only true if there is no suppuration within. To be bitter, to lament unceasingly, 'Why did this have to happen to him?' make the wound fester; the mind, renewing the stab, causes the wound to bleed afresh. It is hard, very hard, not to be bitter in the early days, not to blame doctors, hospitals, drugs that fail to cure. Harder still for the woman whose husband died not by illness but by accident, who was cut shore in full vigour, in the prime of life, killed perhaps in a car crash returning home from work. The first instinct is to seek revenge upon the occupants of the other car, themselves unhurt, whose selfish excess of speed caused the disaster. Yet this is no answer to grief. All anger all reproach, turns inwards upon itself. The infection spreads pervading the mind and body.

    I would say to those who mourn - and I can only speak from my own experience - look upon each day that comes as a challenge, as a test of courage. The pain will come in waves, some days worse than others, for no apparent reason. Accept the pain. Do not suppress it. Never attempt to hide grief from yourself. Little by little, just as the deaf, the blind, the handicapped develop with time an extra sense to balance the disability, so the bereaved, the widowed, will find new strength, new vision, born of the very pain and loneliness which seem at first, impossible to master. I address myself more especially to the middle-aged who, like myself, look back to over thirty years or more of married life and find it hardest to adapt. The young must, of their very nature, heal sooner than ourselves.

    Funeral Blues

    W.H. Auden

    Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
    Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
    Silence the pianos, and with muffled drum,
    Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

    Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
    Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead,
    Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
    Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

    He was my North, my South my East and West,
    My working week and my Sunday rest,
    My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song:
    I thought love could last forever: I was wrong.

    The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
    Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
    Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
    For nothing can ever come to any good.

    Go Cheerful

    Rosemary Anne Sisson

    When my time has come to die, I hope that there may be To bid farewell to me A brilliant, cloudlessly-blue sky.

    I hope the lilac is in bloom, And daffodils may dance, And tulips bend and glance, And sunlight stream into the room.

    Don't draw the curtains, don't pull down the blind. And don't wear sombre dress Don't think of ugliness If to my memory you would be kind.

    Please ask the minister to speak of me As one who trod Life's path with God. Oh, let his words ring out in glorious certainty!

    Plant flowers there among the grass Whose cheerful bloom And sweet perfume May please the churchgoers who pass.

    Oh, don't let dying make my memory false! Put in my epitaph How much I loved to laugh, And that I loved to dance to an old-fashioned waltz.

    Heraclitus

    William Johnson Cory

    They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed. I wept as I remembered how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

    And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest, A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest, Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake: For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

    He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven

    William Butler Yeats

    Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light,
    The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
    Of night and light and the half light,
    I would spread the cloths under your feet:
    But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
    I have spread my dreams under your feet;
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

    How do I love thee?

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
    I love thee to the depth and breath and height
    My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
    For the ends of being and ideal grace.
    I love thee to the level of every day's
    Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
    I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
    I love thee purely, as they turn form praise.
    I love thee with the passion put to use
    In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
    I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
    With my lost saints, - I love thee with the breath,
    Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
    I shall but love thee better after death.

    How Long is a Man's Life?

    Pablo Neruda

    How long does a man live, after all? A thousand days, or only one? One week, or a few centuries? How long does a man spend living or dying And what do we mean when we say, gone forever?

    Adrift in such preoccupations, we seek clarification. We can go to the philosophers, But they will weary of our questions. We can go to the priests and the rabbis But they might be too busy with administrations.

    So, how long does a man live, after all? And how much does he live while he lives? We fret, and ask so many questions - Then when it comes to us The answer is so simple after all.

    A man lives for so long as we carry him inside us, For as long as we carry the harvest of his dreams, For as long as we ourselves live, Holding memories in common, a man lives.

    Is lover will carry his man's scent, his touch; His children will carry the weight of his love. One friend will carry his arguments, Another will hum his favourite tunes, Another will share his terrors.

    And the days will pas with baffled faces, then the weeks, then the months, then there will be a day when no question is asked, and the knots of grief will loosen in the stomach, and the puffed faces will calm. And on that day he will not have ceased, But will have ceased to be separated by death. How long does a man live, after all?

    A man live so many different lengths of time.

    I Corinthians 13 - If I have not love

    If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,
    but have not love,
    I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
    If I have the gift of prophecy
    and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge,
    and if I have a faith that can move mountains,
    but have not love,
    I am nothing.
    If I give all I possess to the poor
    and surrender my body to the flames,
    but have not love,
    I gain nothing.

    Love is patient, love is kind.
    It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
    It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
    it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
    Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
    It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
    Love never fails.

    But where there are prophecies, they will cease;
    where there are tongues, they will be stilled;
    where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
    For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
    but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

    When I was a child,
    I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
    When I became a man,
    I put childish ways behind me.
    Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror;
    then we shall see face to face
    Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

    And now these three remain:
    faith, hope and love.
    But the greatest of these is love.

    If I Should Go Before the Rest of You

    Joyce Grenfell

    If I should go before the rest of you
    Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone.
    Nor when I'm gone speak in a Sunday voice,
    But be the usual selves that I have known.
    Weep if you must,
    Parting is hell,
    But life goes on,
    So sing as well.

    I'm here for a short visit only

    Noel Coward

    I'm here for a short visit only
    And I'd rather be loved than hated:
    Eternity may be lonely When my body's disintegrated,
    And that which is loosely termed my soul
    Goes whizzing off through the infinite
    By means of some vague remote control;
    I'd like to think I was missed a bit.

    Indian Prayer

    Traditional

    When I am dead, Cry for me a little, Think of me sometimes But not too much.

    Think of me now and again As I was in life at some moment That is pleasant to recall - But not too long.

    Leave me in peace And I shall leave you in peace. And whilst you live Let your thoughts be with the living.

    I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark

    Gerard Manley Hopkins

    I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
    What hours, O what black hours we have spent
    This night! what sights, heart, saw; ways you went!
    And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
    With witness I speak this. But where I say
    Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
    Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
    To dearest him that lives alas! away.

    I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
    Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
    Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed with curse.
    Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
    The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
    As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.

    Last Words

    James Thurber

    'God bless... God damn.'

    Let Us Be Contented

    Winston Churchill

    Let us be contented with what has happened and be thankful for all that we have been spared.
    Let us accept the natural order of things in which we move.
    Let us reconcile ourselves to the mysterious rhythm of our destinies, such as they must be in this world of space and time.
    Let us treasure our joys but not bewail our sorrows.
    The glory of light cannot exist without its shadows.
    Life is a whole, and good and ill must be accepted together.
    The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making-----once.

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