There Is No Death

There is no death. The stars go down
To rise upon another shore,
And bright in heaven's jeweled crown
They shine forevermore.

There is no death. The forest leaves
Convert to life the viewless air;
The rocks disorganize to feed
The hungry moss they bear.

There is no death. The dust we tread
Shall change beneath the summer showers
To golden grain or mellow fruit,
Or rainbow tinted flowers.

There is no death. The leaves may fall,
The flowers may fade and pass away--
They only wait through wintry hours
The warm, sweet breath of May.

There is no death, although we grieve
When beautiful familiar forms
That we have learned to love are torn
From our embracing arms.

Although with bowed and breaking heart.
With sable garb and silent tread,
We bear their senseless dust to rest,
And say that they are dead--

They are not dead. They have but passed
Beyond the mists that blind us here,
Into the new and larger life
Of that serener sphere.

They have but dropped their robe of clay
To put a shining raiment on;
They have not wandered far away,
They are not "lost" or "gone."

Though unseen to the mortal eye,
They still are here and love us yet;
The dear ones they have left behind
They never do forget.

Sometimes upon our fevered brow
We feel their touch, a breath of balm:
Our spirit sees them, and our hearts
Grow comforted and calm.

Yes, ever near us, though unseen,
Our dear, immortal spirits tread--
For all God's boundless Universe
Is Life - there are no dead.

~ John Luckey McCreery

To a father,
when his child dies,
the future dies;
to a child,
when his parents die,
the past dies.

~ Berthold Auerbach

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,
the master calls a butterfly.

~ Richard Bach

Because I could not stop for Death -
He kindly stopped for me -
The carriage held just Ourselves -
And Immortality.

~ Emily Dickinson

Death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits.

~ John Webster

Death to the Christian
is the funeral of all his sorrows and evils,
and the resurrection, of all his joys.

~ James H. Aughey

Don't strew me with roses after I'm dead.
When Death claims the light of my brow
No flowers of life will cheer me: instead
You may give me my roses now!

~ Thomas F. Healey

Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance, fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.

~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Better to die, and sleep
The never-waking sleep, than linger on
And dare to live when the soul's life is gone.

~ Sophocles

When we come to die, we shall be alone.
From all our worldly possessions we shall be about to part.
Worldly friends - the friends drawn to us by our position,
our wealth, or our social qualities,
- will leave us as we enter the dark valley.
From those bound to us by stronger ties
- our kindred, our loved ones, children, brothers, sisters,
and from those not less dear to us who have been made our friends
because they and we are the friends of the same Saviour,
- from them also we must part. Yet not all will leave us.
There is One who "sticketh closer than a brother"
- One who having loved His own which are in the world loves them to the end.

~ Albert Barnes

Come! let the burial rite be read-the funeral song be sung!-
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

~ Edgar Allan Poe

I believe that if I should die,
and you were to walk near my grave,
from the very depths of the earth
I would hear your footsteps.

~ Benito Perez Galdos

Death be not proud, though some have called 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.

~ John Donne

But whether on the scaffold high,
Or in the battle's van,
The fittest place where man can die
Is where he dies for man.

~ Michael Joseph Barry

Death is the end of life; ah why
Should life all labour be? . . .
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence - ripen, fall, and cease;
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

~ Lord Alfred Tennyson

I want to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips,
And lights are in my hair.

~ Georgia Douglas Johnson

Men die but once, and the opportunity
Of a noble death is not an everyday fortune:
It is a gift noble spirits pray for.

~ Charles Lamb

The dead they rest, and their rest is deep;
The dead have peace, but the living weep.

~ Samuel Hoffenstein

He who died at Azan sends
This to comfort all this friends:
Faithful friends! It lies I know
Pale and white and cold as snow;
And ye say, "Abdallah's dead!"
Weeping at the feet and head.
I can see your falling tears,
I can hear your sighs and prayers;
Yet I smile and whisper this:
I am not the thing you kiss.
Cease your tears and let it lie;
It was mine--it is not I.

~ Sir Edwin Arnold

There is no death!
What seems so is transition;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.

~ Henry W. Longfellow

I regret not death.
I am going to meet my friends in another world.

~ Ludovico Ariosto

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvelously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks.
All this is ended.

~ Rupert Brooke

Let no man fear to die, we love to sleep all,
And death is but the sounder sleep.

~ Francis Beaumont

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

~ Ernest Dowson

Time Does Not Bring Relief

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year's bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, -- so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his boot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Warm summer sun, shine kindly here;
Warm southern wind, blow softly here;
Green sod above, lie light, lie light -
Good night, dear heart, good night, good night.

~ Robert Richardson

We who are left how shall we look again
Happily on the sun or feel the rain
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly and spent
Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?

~ Wilfred Wilson Gibson

When on my day the evening shadows fall,
I will go down to where a quiet river flows
Into a sea from whence no man returns;
And there embark for lands where life immortal grows.

~ Thomas Tiplady

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

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

This was engraved on his gravestone

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me:
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree.
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet:
And if thou wilt, remember
And if thou wilt, forget.

~ Christina Rossetti

And when no longer we can see Thee,
may we reach out our hands,
and find Thee leading us
through death to immortality and glory.

~ Henry Ward Beecher

Death is not an end.
It is a new impulse.

~ Henry Ward Beecher

Brethren, we are all sailing home;
and by and by, when we are not thinking of it,
some shadowy thing (men call it death),
at midnight, will pass by,
and will call us by name,
and will say, "I have a message for you from home;
God wants you; heaven waits for you."

~ Henry Ward Beecher

There is but one easy place in this world, and that is the grave.

~ Henry Ward Beecher

Death is the dropping of the flower
that the fruit may swell.

~ Henry Ward Beecher

Living is death; dying is life.
We are not what we appear to be.

~ Henry Ward Beecher

On this side of the grave we are exiles,
on that, citizens; on this side, orphans;
on that, children; on this side, captives;
on that, freemen.

~ Henry Ward Beecher

Going out into life - that is dying.
Christ is the door out of life.

~ Henry Ward Beecher

Death? Translated into the heavenly tongue,
that word means life!

~ Henry Ward Beecher

To the Christian, these shades are the golden haze which heaven's light makes, when it meets the earth, and mingles with its shadows.

~ Henry Ward Beecher

So we fall asleep in Jesus. We have played long enough at the games of life, and at last we feel the approach of death. We are tired out, and we lay our heads back on the bosom of Christ, and quietly fall asleep.

~ Henry Ward Beecher

Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with dust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.

~ Oscar Wilde

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

~ Oscar Wilde

Moon, worn thin to the width of a quill,
In the dawn clouds flying,
How good to go, light into light, and still
Giving light, dying.

~ Sara Teasdale

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land.

~ Sara Teasdale

My life is light, waiting for the death wind,
Like a feather on the back of my hand.

~ T. S. Eliot

Birth, copulation, and death.
That's all the facts when you come to brass tacks.

~ T. S. Eliot

Death is at once
The end of the body's
Old journey
And the beginning of the soul's
New journey.

~ Author Unknown

The sorrow of the faithful is not that of permanent loss, but the tender sense of sadness that comes in saying good-bye for now, to someone we love.

~ Author Unknown

Those who care and
share your loss wish you
comfort and peace of mind.
May you find strength
in the love of family
and in the warm embrace
of friends.

~ Author Unknown

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.

~ Author Unknown

And here are the words from the lips of a dying man.

Will not all my riches save me?
What! is there no bribing death?

~ Henry Beaufort