Poems & Readings
We Seem To Give Them Back To Thee
by Bishop Brent
We seem to give them back to Thee, 0 God who gavest them to us.
Yet as Thou didst not lose them in giving,
So do we not lose them by their return.
Not as the world giveth, givest Thou 0 Lover of souls.
What Thou givest Thou takest not away,
For what is Thine is ours also if we are thine.
And life is eternal and love is immortal,
And death is only an horizon,
And an horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.
Lift us up, strong Son of God that we may see further;
Cleanse our eyes that we may see more clearly;
Draw us closer to Thyself
That we may know ourselves to be nearer to our loved ones
Who are with Thee.
And while Thou dost prepare a place for us,
Prepare us also for that happy place,
That where Thou art we may be also for evermore.
Footprints on the sands of time
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Life is but an empty dream! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, — act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Readings With Faith
by Kahlil Gibran
“…You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot
unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,
open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires
lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow, your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity…
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?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance…”
And When The Stream That Overflows Has Passed
by William Wordsworth, from The Excursion
And when the stream that overflows has passed,
A consciousness remains upon the silent shore of memory;
Images and precious thoughts that shall not be
And cannot be destroyed.
There Is No Night Without a Dawning
by Helen Steiner Rice
There is no night without a dawning
No winter without a spring
And beyond the dark horizon
Our hearts will once more sing ….
For those who leave us for a while
Have only gone away
Out of a restless, care worn world
Into a brighter day