For a funeral, choose a short poem — under twenty lines — that sounds like the person who died rather than like what is usually read at funerals. "Remember" by Christina Rossetti, "Crossing the Bar" by Tennyson and "Requiem" by Robert Louis Stevenson are in the public domain: you can read them, print them in the order of service and post them online freely. All three are reproduced in full below.
A reading either consoles, refuses to console, or describes this particular person. After an unexpected or young death, refusing to console is often the honest choice. Decide which you want before reading poems, or you will choose by familiarity.
What holds up when read aloud
Length. Past twenty lines, attention drifts and the voice tires.
Syntax. Out loud, nobody can go back and reread. Prefer lines that each make sense on their own.
Concrete detail. A place, a time of day, a gesture lands better than an abstract image in a room where everyone knew the person.
Read it aloud at home, all the way through, before you commit: some poems break at the third line, and it is better to find out alone.
Three poems, in full
"Remember", Christina Rossetti
For a husband or wife, or for someone who was ill for a long time and worried about the people they were leaving. The sonnet asks to be remembered, then in its last lines gives permission to forget and be happy — which some families need to hear said aloud. Be aware that line eleven mentions "corruption", in the physical sense.
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
"Crossing the Bar", Alfred, Lord Tennyson
For someone private, or whose life was connected to the sea. One image throughout: a ship leaving harbour at nightfall. The last stanza names a "Pilot", read by most as God, which matters at a non-religious service.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
"Requiem", Robert Louis Stevenson
For someone who died old and ready, or who loved being outdoors. Eight lines, written by Stevenson about his own death, with no religion and no grief in them. That is its strength after a long life and its limit after a sudden one.
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Other poems you will come across
"Death is nothing at all" — Henry Scott Holland. Prose from a 1910 sermon, public domain. Plain and consoling; it suits a long life, and can sound minimizing after a sudden death.
"Do not stand at my grave and weep." Read at a great many secular services. It is usually attributed to Mary Elizabeth Frye, but the attribution is disputed and very different versions circulate. If you choose it, pick one version and stick to it rather than stitching together lines found online — and do not assume it is free to print.
"Funeral Blues" (W. H. Auden) is still in copyright. "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" (Dylan Thomas) entered the public domain in the UK and Ireland in 2024, but is still protected in the United States.
Copyright, in one rule
In the UK, Ireland and the rest of Europe, a poem stays protected for seventy years after its author's death. In the United States, anything published before 1931 is in the public domain; for later poems it depends on the date of publication. While a poem is protected, ask its publisher before printing it in an order of service or posting it online.
The three poems above raise none of these questions.
If a song would fit better than a poem, funeral songs has the same treatment. For your own words, how to write a eulogy and the worked paths for a father, a mother or a friend. For the few words that go on stone instead of being spoken, what to put on a headstone — and the main guide.
Texts checked on 12 October 2026 on Wikisource: Christina Rossetti, Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862); Alfred Tennyson, Demeter and Other Poems (1889); Robert Louis Stevenson, Underwoods (1887). Copyright terms checked the same day on GOV.UK and in Cornell University Library's public domain chart.
