Funeral Poems for Wife

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.

— W.H. Auden

Copyright W.H. Auden Estate. Published by Random House.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, 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.

— Biblical, NIV

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth 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 candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from 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.

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear;

— E.E. Cummings

Copyright E.E. Cummings Trust. Published by Liveright Publishing.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

— Biblical, KJV

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets (1609)

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.

— W.B. Yeats

When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet; And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget. I shall not see the shadows, I shall not feel the rain; I shall not hear the nightingale Sing on, as if in pain: And dreaming through the twilight That doth not rise nor set, Haply I may remember, And haply may forget.

— Christina Rossetti

It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love — I and my Annabel Lee — With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsmen came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in Heaven, Went envying her and me — Yes! — that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we — Of many far wiser than we — And neither the angels in Heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea — In her tomb by the sounding sea.

— Edgar Allan Poe

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 glints 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 circling flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die.

— Clare Harner

When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

— W.B. Yeats

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

— Lord Byron

A wife, a mother, a grandma too, This is the legacy we have from you. You taught us love and how to fight, You gave us strength, you gave us might. A stronger person would be hard to find, And in your heart, you were always kind. You fought for us all in one way or another, Not just as a wife, not just as a mother. For all of us you gave your best, Now the time has come for you to rest. So go in peace, you've earned your sleep, Your love in our hearts, we'll eternally keep.

— Unknown

The life that I have Is all that I have And the life that I have Is yours.

— Leo Marks

Copyright Leo Marks Estate.

When I die Give what's left of me away To children And old men that wait to die.

— Merrit Malloy

Copyright Merrit Malloy.

A wife, a mother, a grandma too, This is the legacy we have from you. You taught us love and how to fight, You gave us strength, you gave us might. A stronger person would be hard to find, And in your heart, you were always kind. You fought for us all in one way or another, Not just as a wife, not just as a mother. For all of us you gave your best, And now the time has come for you to rest. So go in peace, you've earned your sleep, Your love in our hearts, we'll eternally keep.

— Unknown

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow. Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast! Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!

— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene ii

The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the ocean, The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine? — See the mountains kiss high heaven And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What is all this sweet work worth If thou kiss not me?

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors— No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

— John Keats

If I be the first of us to die, Let grief not blacken long your sky. Be bold yet modest in your grieving. There is a change but not a leaving.

— Nicholas Evans

Copyright Nicholas Evans Estate.

Without you there's no sunrise, Without you there's no day, Without you there's no laughter, Since you have gone away. Without you there's no evening, No stars up in the sky, Without you there's just emptiness, And all I do is cry. But somewhere deep within my heart Your love still lights the way, And I know we'll be together Again some other day.

— Unknown

I can't believe you're really gone, My love, my heart, my soul. Without you here, my world has changed, No longer feeling whole.

— Unknown

Modern poem with various attributions.

She was the morning in my day, The autumn in my year, The gentle hand upon my back, The voice I longed to hear. She was the calm within my storm, The laughter in my dark, The reason every fire I lit Still carried one bright spark. She made a palace of our home, A kingdom of our love. She turned our ordinary days To something far above. My wife, my love, my life, my all— Though death has come between, No distance dims the brightest love This world has ever seen.

— Unknown

She kept the household running smooth While keeping hearts at ease. She held together everything With quiet expertise. She remembered every birthday, Every promise, every plan. She was the thread that bound us all, The centre of the clan. She gave her love in casseroles, In phone calls late at night, In quiet prayers and worried looks And hugs that held on tight. The world won't know how much she gave, But we, her family, do. The best wife, mother, friend on earth— The world was blessed by you.

— Unknown

She was the sun that warmed our days, The moon that lit our nights, The compass when we lost our way, The star in all our sights. Her love was never loud or bold, But steady, sure, and deep. The promises her heart had made Were promises she'd keep. And though the sun has set for now, Its warmth is still in bloom. For she is in the air we breathe, In every sunlit room. We loved her then, we love her now, We'll love her evermore— Our wife, our world, our guiding star, Who lit us to the core.

— Unknown

Walk to the shore where a star's last rays Are shimmering on the waters. Walk, and think of all we shared, The joy, the laughter, the tears. I walked among people, I walked alone, But always I walked with my heart. I knew no other way to walk, I knew no other way to love. And though I leave this life behind, I leave my heart with you. For everything I ever was, I gave it all to you.

— Hannah Szenes