Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • COVID-19
    • Re-Opening FAQ
  • Poetry
    • Poems
    • Poets
    • Our National Poet
    • Podcasts
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Poetry and Mindfulness
    • Champions 2020
    • Posters
    • Publishers
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • National Poetry Day 2019
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • Exhibitions
    • Venue hire
    • List an event
  • Shop
    • Scotland’s Makar
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Pocket Poets
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Our projects
    • Jobs
    • Our building
    • FAQs
    • Find us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
    • Easy Fundraising
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poems
  • >
  • For Funerals
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Occasion: For Funerals

The Late Swallow - by Edwin Muir

{ Poem }

Leave, leave your well-loved nest,
/ Late swallow, and fly away.
/ Here is no rest
/ For hollowing heart and wearying wing.
/ Your comrades all have…

Song - by William Soutar

{ Poem }

End is in beginning;
/ And in beginning end:
/ Death is not loss, nor life winning;
/ But each and to each is friend.
/
/ The hands…

Consolation - by Robert Louis Stevenson

{ Poem }

Though he that ever kind and true
/ Kept stoutly step by step with you
/ Your whole long gusty lifetime through,
/ Be gone awhile…

The Bird that was Trapped has Flown - by James Robertson

{ Poem }

in memoriam Vicky Patterson
/
/ The bird that was trapped has flown
/ The sky that was grey is blue
/ The bone that was dead…

Dignity - by G. F. Dutton

{ Poem }

These young birches
/ shriek green laughter up the hill
/ billow on billow. They
/ stop as he enters. He
/ carries his promised absence
/ carefully and yes
/ he…

Epitaph on my own Friend - by Robert Burns

{ Poem }

An honest man here lies at rest,
/ As e’er God with His image blest:
/ The friend of man, the friend of…

Winged Skye - by Donald Smith

{ Poem }

When this body comes to die,
/ Set me on the headland high,
/ Where sun and rain go marching by,
/ Raven lord of wave…

Requiem - by Robert Louis Stevenson

{ Poem }

Under the wide and starry sky,
/ Dig the grave and let me die.
/ Glad did I live and gladly die,
/ …

Departure and Departure and … - by George Bruce

{ Poem }

Someone is waving a white handkerchief
/ from the train as it pulls out with a white
/ plume from the station and rumbles…

Praise of a Man - by Norman MacCaig

{ Poem }

He went through a company like a lamplighter –
/ see the dull minds, one after another,
/ begin to glow, to shed
/ a beneficent…

  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2021.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
By leaves we live

The Scottish Poetry Library is staffed weekdays from 10am – 2pm and is providing a limited service including postal loans and Click & Collect. For details, click COVID-19 in the menu bar above. Dismiss