Funerals

There was an old man in a hearse,
Who murmured, "This might have been worse;
    Of course the expense
    Is simply immense,
But it doesn't come out of my purse."

Unknown

The identity of this poet is not known. Their works, which are often of significant historical or cultural value, have been attributed to 'Unknown'. This designation is commonly used when the creator of works, ranging from ancient texts to more modern writings, remains anonymous or uncredited. Despite the lack of personal details, the impact and importance of these works endure, offering insight into the eras and cultures from which they originated.

Unknown

Nursery Rhyme. DLIV. Natural History.

Unknown , Simple Poetry

Nursery Rhyme. XVIII. Historical

Unknown , Simple Poetry

Nursery Rhyme. CCCCXLIV. Love And Matrimony.

Unknown , Simple Poetry

Nursery Rhyme. CLXVII. Songs.

Unknown , Simple Poetry

English

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Grief

As the funeral train with its honoured dead
    On its mournful way went sweeping,
While a sorrowful nation bowed its head
    And the whole world joined in weeping,
I thought, as I looked on the solemn sight,
    Of the one fond heart despairing,
And I said to myself, as in truth I might,
    "How sad must be this SHARING."

To share the living with even Fame,
    For a heart that is only human,
Is hard, when Glory asserts her claim
    Like a bold, insistent woman;
Yet a great, grand passion can put aside
    Or stay each selfish emotion,
And watch, with a pleasure that springs from pride,
    Its rival - the world's devotion.

But Death should render to love its own,
    And my heart bowed down and sorrowed
For the stricken woman who wep...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When The Hearse Comes Back

A thing 'at's 'bout as tryin' as a healthy man kin meet
Is some poor feller's funeral a-joggin' 'long the street:
The slow hearse and the hosses - slow enough, to say at least,
Fer to even tax the patience of gentleman deceased!
The low scrunch of the gravel - and the slow grind of the wheels,
The slow, slow go of ev'ry woe 'at ev'rybody feels!
So I ruther like the contrast when I hear the whip-lash crack
A quickstep fer the hosses,
        When the
        Hearse
            Comes
            Back!

Meet it goin' to'rds the cimet'ry, you'll want to drap yer eyes -
But ef the plumes don't fetch you, it'll ketch you otherwise -
You'll haf to see the caskit, though you'd ort to look away
And 'conomize and save yer sighs fer any other day!
Yer sympathizin' w...

James Whitcomb Riley

Blaney's Last Directions

It is usual
for people in this country
(out of pretended respect
but rather from an impertinent curiosity)
to desire to see
persons
after they are
dead.

It is my earnest request that no person
on any pretence whatever
may be permitted to see my
corpse
but those who
unavoidably must.

I desire to be buried
in the north side of the churchyard
of Tregynon
somewhere about the centre
my coffin to be made in the most
plain and simple manner
without the usual fantastical decorations
and the more
perishable the material
the better.

I desire that no undertaker
or professed performer of funerals
may be employed:
but that I may be conveyed
to the churchyard
in some country hears
which ...

Ben Jonson

A Dirge

A bell tolls on in my heart
As though in my ears a knell
Had ceased for awhile to swell,
But the sense of it would not part
From the spirit that bears its part
In the chime of the soundless bell.
Ah dear dead singer of sorrow,
The burden is now not thine
That grief bade sound for a sign
Through the songs of the night whose morrow
Has risen, and I may not borrow
A beam from its radiant shrine.
The burden has dropped from thee
That grief on thy life bound fast;
The winter is over and past
Whose end thou wast fain to see.
Shall sorrow not comfort me
That is thine no longer, at last?
Good day, good night, and good morrow,
Men living and mourning say.
For thee we could only pray
That night of the day might borrow
Such comfort as dreams...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Briny Grave

You wonder why so many would be buried in the sea,
In this world of froth and bubble,
But I dont wonder, for it seems to me
That it saves such a lot of trouble.
And there aint no undertaker,
Oh! there aint no order that your friends can give
On the quiet to the coffin-maker,
To a gimcrack coffin-maker,
They make no differ twixt the absentee swell
And the clerk that cut from a shortage,
Oh! there aint no pauper funer-el,
And there aint no impressive cortege.
It may be a chap from the forard crowd,
Or a member of the British Peerage,
But they sew his nibs in a canvas shroud
Just the same as the bloke from the steerage,
As that poor bloke from the steerage.
There aint no need for a gravedigger there,
For you dig your own grave! Lord love yer!...

Henry Lawson

Sorrow and Joy.

In sad procession borne away
    To sound of funeral knell,
Affection's tribute thus we pay,
And in earth's shelt'ring bosom lay
The friend to whom but yesterday
    We gave the sad farewell.

But scarce the melancholy sound
    Has died upon the ear,
Before the mournful dirge is drowned
By wedding-anthems' glad rebound,
That stir the solemn air around
    With merry peals and clear.

Within our home doth gladness tread
    So closely upon grief
That, in the tears of sorrow shed
O'er our beloved, lamented dead,
We see reflected joy instead
    That gives a blest relief.

A father and a daughter gone
    Beyond our fireside -
For one we loved and leaned upon
The skillful archer Death had drawn
His bow; and one in lif...

Hattie Howard