Funeral Poems for Children

Poems for young deaths

Fly

Fly, fly, precious one,
Your endless journey has begun.
Take your gentle happiness
Far too beautiful for this.

Cross over to the other shore,
There is peace for evermore.
But hold this memory bittersweet
Until we meet.

Fly, fly, do not fear
Don’t waste a breath, don’t shed a tear.
Your heart is pure, your soul is free.
Be on your way, don’t wait for me.

Above the universe you’ll climb,
On beyond the hands of time.
The moon will rise, the sun will set.
But we won’t forget.

Fly, fly, little wing.
Fly, where only angels sing.
Fly away, the time is right.

Celine Dion

 

Part Of You Has Faded

There can be no greater loss
Than that of a child
No pain ever imagined
Can hurt so deep
So innocent and pure
Such dreams unfulfilled
They are a part of you
Now part of you has faded
You sustain life in their memory
But the emptiness engulfs you
Still, you know in your heart
You must live life for them
Why not me instead of you?
Your life had just begun
I have lived so many years
My work on earth is done
I cannot believe my eyes
As they cover you with dirt
Tears will not stop flowing
My heart fills with hurt
Memories of you embrace me
I prepare myself for the worst
Why not me instead of you?
I should have gone first

Robert Ingersoll, a great public speaker of the late 1800s

Robert Ingersoll was asked to speak at the graveside of a friend’s young daughter. He spoke briefly, and with the greatest words of comfort he could find. He said:

“Before the sublime mystery of life and spirit, the mystery of infinite space and endless time, we stand in reverent awe. This much we know: we are at least one phase of the immortality of life. The mighty stream of life flows on, and, in this mighty stream, we too flow on…not lost…but each eternally significant. For this I feel: The spirit never betrays the person who trusts it. Physical life may be defeated but life goes on; character survives, goodness lives and love is immortal.

Colonel Robert G Ingersoll

Songs Of The Death Of Children (Kindertotenlieder):

You must not shut the night inside you,
But endlessly in light the dark immerse.
A tiny lamp has gone out in my tent – 
I bless the flame that warms the universe.

Friedrich Ruckert (1788-1866)

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost (1875-1963)

She Charms

Her laughter was better than birds in the morning,
her smile turned the edge of the wind,
her memory disarms death and charms the surly grave.
Early she went to bed,
too early we saw her light put out;
yet we could not grieve more than a little while,
For she lives in the earth around us, laughs from the sky.

Cecil Day Lewis

Contribute your own

If you know, or have written poems or words that you think would help others in regard to a young death, we warmly invite you to send them to us, and we will include them in this section. Please email them to me here.

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