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Funeral poemsA man dies twice

A man dies twice

Reading time: 50 seconds

Modern Plain English Stoic Uplifting

Lucas Jones · 2025

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A man dies twice

Lucas Jones · 2025

We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

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Modern Plain English Stoic Uplifting

Meaning

A man dies twice, he says: once when his heart stops, which is the easy one, and once when the door to his purpose gets locked. The second is the slow one that takes a whole life. It ends saying a man who lives in service never really dies at all.

Who's it for

A man who kept a sense of purpose right to the end. Right for a family who want to say what he was for rather than what he was like.

Lucas Jones

British · Around 30 years old

@lucassjoness

@lucasthejones

linktr.ee/lucassjoness

Lucas Jones is an actor and a poet. He grew up in Huntingdon in a pentecostal family, moved house seven times before he was fourteen, and lives in London now. He started putting poems on the internet in 2023 and more than a million people follow him.

More about Lucas Jones →

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Death stands above me

This poem is for a family who do not believe in anything particular and would rather not pretend they do. Right for someone who was not afraid at the end.

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Death, be not proud

This poem is for a believer, and a family who want something with some fight in it rather than a quiet goodbye. It suits a person who argued back all their life.

A classicReligious

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Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so: For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. From Rest and Sleep, which but thy picture be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow; And soonest our best men with thee do go-- Rest of their bones and souls' delivery! Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

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Doing the right thing

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ModernPlain English

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

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Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun

This poem is for a person who worked hard all their life and had had enough by the end. It also fits someone who never cared much who was important and who wasn't.

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Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages: Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Fear no more the frown o' the great, Thou art past the tyrant's stroke; Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust. Fear no more the lightning flash Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finish'd joy and moan: All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

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Holding On

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ComfortingModern

We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

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I am not the world

This poem is for a humble life, in five lines. Right for a reader who wants to say one true thing and sit down.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

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I Shall Not Care

This poem is for someone who was their own person and never needed anyone's approval. Right for a woman who did things her own way and would have hated a fuss.

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I strove with none

This poem is for someone who reached a good age and stayed out of other people's arguments. Right for a person who loved being outdoors or worked with their hands, and was content by the end.

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If—

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If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

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Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

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This poem is for someone who never sat still and left things behind them: a business, a trade, a houseful of people they taught. Right for a life spent being useful.

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Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,--act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time;-- Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

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This poem is for a child's funeral, or a family who want somewhere hopeful to put the question without naming a religion. It is playful on purpose.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

More about this poem →

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This poem is for a nurse, a carer, or anybody who worked in the room where people die. Right for a service full of colleagues who did the same job.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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This poem is for a believer, and a family who want something with some fight in it rather than a quiet goodbye. It suits a person who argued back all their life.

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This poem is for a family who want comfort without religion. Right after a long life, or a long illness that was fought hard.

ModernNon-religious

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

Doing the right thing

This poem is for someone whose kindness nobody ever thanked them for. Right for a family who want that said plainly at last.

ModernPlain English

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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This poem is for a family who are divided about religion, for somebody whose goodness was the whole of their faith. Right where half the room would walk out of a sermon and the other half needs one.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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This poem is for anyone who died young, and a family who need to hear that a short life was still a whole one. Right for a person who packed a lot in.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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This poem is for a husband or wife who was told how long they had. Right for a family who watched somebody spend their last weeks reassuring everybody else.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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This poem is for a child reading at a funeral, or anybody who can only manage four lines. Right where somebody wants to speak and knows they will not get through much.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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This poem is for a family who feel something at a funeral and have no words for it. Right for a room that is not religious and is not comfortable saying so either.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

More about this poem →

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This poem is for a family being swallowed by the ugly end of grief. It tells them what the anger is made of without asking them to feel better yet.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

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Again

This poem is for anyone in the first terrible weeks who has caught themselves wishing they had never met. It is the answer to that thought.

ComfortingModern

We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

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This poem is for someone whose whole identity was being loved by one person. Right for the shortest possible reading at a partner's funeral.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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This poem is for a nurse, a carer, or anybody who worked in the room where people die. Right for a service full of colleagues who did the same job.

ModernPlain English

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

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2 min

We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

Hear Lucas Jones read it on TikTok.

More about this poem →

Bus Shelter

This poem is for someone who thought the fuss about dying was a bit much. Right for a commuter, a queuer, anyone who spent their life waiting patiently for things.

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We are not licensed to show this poem here. You can still read it aloud at a funeral.

More about this poem →

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