Many people call us looking for a unique, personalized sympathy gift; a gift that will be meaningful and enduring. They are searching for a gift alternative to flowers which are beautiful, but fleeting. Our personalized Woodstock Amazing Grace wind chimes are often used for memorial purposes. Today, we give the option of including beautiful sympathy poems with our chimes. The bereavement poem below, attributed to Mary Frye (circa 1932), was given to a friend of mine when her father passed away, and it brought her great comfort. I love it as well and I think it adds something really special to our chimes. Sympathy poems are suitable to tuck into a sympathy card, to incorporate into a funeral program, to put on a headstone, or to send along with a sympathy gift if you so choose. Here are four of my favorite memorial poems:
In Remembrance
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 a diamond glint on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain
When you awake in the morning hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft stars that shine on night
Do not stand by my grave and cry
I am not there I did not die
Mary Frye – 1932
*****
Live, Laugh, Love
He has achieved success who has lived well,
laughed often, and loved much;
Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women,
the respect of intelligent men and the love
of little children;
Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
Who has never lacked appreciation
of Earth’s beauty or failed to express it:
Who has left the world better than he found it,
whether an improved poppy,
a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
Who has always looked for the best in others
and given them the best he had;
Whose life was an inspiration;
Whose memory a benediction.
Bessie Anderson Stanley, 1904
*****
Gone from my Sight
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side
spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and
starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of
beauty and strength. I stand watch her at length until
she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the
sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says:
“There, she is gone!”
“Gone where?”
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in
mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my
side and she is just as able to bear her load of living
freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just
at the moment when someone at my side says:
“There, she is gone!”
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:
“Here she comes!”
And, that is dying.
Adapted from the poetry of Henry Van Dyke
*****
The Rose Still Grows Beyond the Wall
Near a shady wall a rose once grew,
budded and blossomed in God’s free light,
Watered and fed by morning dew,
shedding its sweetness day and night.
As it grew and blossomed fair and tall,
slowly rising to loftier height,
It came to a crevice in the wall,
through which there shone a beam of light.
Onward it crept with added strength,
with never a thought of fear or pride.
It followed the light through the crevice’s length,
and unfolded itself on the other side.
The light, the dew, the broadening view
were found the same as thy were before:
And it lost itself in beauties new,
breathing its fragrance more and more.
Shall claim of death cause us to grieve,
and make our courage faint or fail?
Nay! Let us faith and hope receive:
the rose still grows beyond the wall.
Scattering fragrance far and wide,
just as it did in days of yore,
Just as it did on the other side,
Just as it will for evermore.
The poetry of A.L. Frink
*****
