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Hope is the thing with feathers

Reading time: 30 seconds

Comforting Uplifting Not about death A classic

Emily Dickinson · 1891

Hope is the thing with feathers

Emily Dickinson · 1891

Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I 've heard it in the chillest land, And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.

Public domain in the UK and the US · serany.app

What Serany thinks about this poem

Comforting Uplifting Not about death A classic

Background

Dickinson wrote it around 1861 and never published it. It appeared five years after she died, in a collection her friends assembled and gave titles to.

Meaning

Hope is a small bird that lives inside you and sings without stopping, even in the worst weather. It never once asks for anything back.

Who's it for

Someone who stayed hopeful without ever making a show of it, and kept other people going by it.

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Barter

Sara Teasdale · 1917

Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things,

50 sec

Who's it for

A person who got a lot out of being alive: weather, music, food, their children's faces. Right where a family want the funeral to be about the living they did.

UpliftingNot about deathOutdoorsyPlain EnglishNon-religious

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If—

Rudyard Kipling · 1910

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

2 min

Who's it for

Someone who got on with things, kept their temper, and didn’t make a fuss when life went against them. The sort of person other people steadied themselves against.

StoicA classicTraditionalFor a fatherNot about death

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Trees

Joyce Kilmer · 1913

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.

35 sec

Who's it for

A gardener, a farmer, or anyone who planted things that are still growing. It also fits a believer who found God outdoors rather than indoors.

Not about deathOutdoorsyReligiousPlain EnglishGentleA classic

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A Psalm of Life

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · 1838

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream!

2 min

Who's it 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.

UpliftingA classicPlain EnglishReligiousTraditional

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Barter

Sara Teasdale · 1917

Life has loveliness to sell, All beautiful and splendid things,

50 sec

Who's it for

A person who got a lot out of being alive: weather, music, food, their children's faces. Right where a family want the funeral to be about the living they did.

UpliftingNot about deathOutdoorsyPlain EnglishNon-religious

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Death, be not proud

John Donne · 1633

Death, be not proud, though some have callèd thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:

55 sec

Who's it 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 classicReligiousUpliftingStoicUnusual

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It is not growing like a tree

Ben Jonson · 1640

It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be;

35 sec

Who's it 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.

Gone too soonUpliftingComfortingUnusual

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Joy, Shipmate, Joy!

Walt Whitman · 1871

Joy, shipmate, Joy! (Pleas'd to my soul at death I cry,)

20 sec

Who's it for

A sailor, or anyone who was happiest setting off somewhere new. Right for a family who want something glad said out loud at the funeral.

UpliftingFor an adventurerOutdoorsyNon-religiousPlain English

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No coward soul is mine

Emily Brontë · 1850

No coward soul is mine, No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:

1 min

Who's it for

A person whose faith was entirely their own and who had no time for churches. Right for someone nobody could frighten.

StoicUpliftingReligiousUnusual

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On Death

Kahlil Gibran · 1923

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

40 sec

Who's it for

A family who want hope without a particular religion behind it. Right for someone curious about everything, who wasn't frightened of what came next.

UpliftingComfortingA classic

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Prospice

Robert Browning · 1864

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face,

2 min

Who's it for

Someone who fought their illness all the way and wanted to know exactly what was happening. Also right for a person going back to a husband or wife who died first.

Fought to the endStoicUpliftingReligiousFor a partner

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She Is Gone

David Harkins · 1981

Not shown here, because the poem is still in copyright.

Who's it for

A mother or a grandmother, and a family trying to turn back towards living. Right for someone who'd have wanted everyone to get on with it.

UpliftingComfortingPlain EnglishA classicFor a motherFor a grandmotherFor a fatherFor a grandfatherModern

About this poem

When I go from hence

Rabindranath Tagore · 1912

When I go from hence let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable. I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus am I blessed—let this be my parting word.

45 sec

Who's it for

Someone grateful and curious, who found something holy without needing a church for it. Right for a person who reckoned they had had the better of the bargain.

UpliftingReligiousA long lifeComfortingUnusual

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Crossing the Bar

Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1889

Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me!

45 sec

Who's it for

Someone who had a long life and was ready. Especially right for anyone who went to sea, or just loved being near it.

ReligiousTraditionalA classicComfortingGentleOutdoorsyA long lifePeace at last

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Death Is Nothing At All

Henry Scott Holland · 1919

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

2 min

Who's it for

Almost any funeral, and it is the reading most families have already heard. Right for someone whose house was full of easy talk and jokes.

ComfortingGentlePlain EnglishA classicReligious

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Death stands above me

Walter Savage Landor · 1853

Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear:

15 sec

Who's it 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.

StoicNon-religiousComfortingGentlePlain EnglishPeace at last

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Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

Mary Elizabeth Frye · 1932

Not shown here, because the poem is still in copyright.

Who's it for

Almost anyone, honestly. It's best of all for someone who was always outside: out walking, in the garden, never in the house.

A classicComfortingOutdoorsyNon-religiousGentlePlain EnglishModern

About this poem

Epitaph on an Infant

Samuel Taylor Coleridge · 1794

Ere Sin could blight or Sorrow fade, Death came with friendly care;

10 sec

Who's it for

A baby, or a child who died very small. It is right where a family believe their child is somewhere safe and being looked after now.

For a babyFor a childGone too soonReligiousComfortingGentlePlain English

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Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun

William Shakespeare · 1623

Fear no more the heat o' the sun, Nor the furious winter's rages:

50 sec

Who's it 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.

A classicTraditionalComfortingPeace at lastStoicA long lifeAfter dementia

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It is not growing like a tree

Ben Jonson · 1640

It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be;

35 sec

Who's it 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.

Gone too soonUpliftingComfortingUnusual

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Mother o' Mine

Rudyard Kipling · 1891

If I were hanged on the highest hill, Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!

40 sec

Who's it for

A mother whose love never had any conditions on it. The kind that would have followed her children anywhere, and they always knew it.

For a motherComfortingTraditional

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Music, when soft voices die

Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1824

Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory;

20 sec

Who's it for

A musician or a singer, and anyone whose house was always full of music. It also fits a husband or wife, because what it says is that their love outlasts them.

For a musicianFor a partnerGentleTear jerkerNon-religiousComforting

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