In Memoriam
Classmates Who Have Passed
Our Alma Mater

A Compilation of the Readings

Used in both the Chapel Service and the Cemetery Pilgrimage

 

All Is Well Henry Scott Holland

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,

Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was,
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,
Just around the corner.
All is well.

 

 

And Death Shall Have No Dominion - Dylan Thomas

(3rd Reading – Chapel Service)

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And death shall have no dominion.
Dead man naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windil
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

 

Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep Mary Frye

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’s 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 cry;
I am not there.
I did not die.

 

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Go In Love Rev. Andy Pakula

 

There are miles behind you,

And many more ahead.

As you journey on toward wholeness,

May all that is good and true guide your way.

May the joy of love lighten every step,

And the miracle that is life be ever in your sight.

Live boldly and fully.

True to yourself and all that you hold dear.

Go in peace.

Go in truth.

Go in love.

 

 

Selection from Meditation XVII (17) John Donne (1572-1631)

 

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe [the world] is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thy own were.

 

Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind,

and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

 

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Ode: Intimations of Immortality (5) William Wordsworth

 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:

 

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing Boy

But he

Beholds the light, and whence it flows,

He see it in his joy;

 

The Youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

 

PSALM 23 (4th Reading – Chapel Service)

 

The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

 

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil; for thou art with me;

thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

 

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;

thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

 

 

REMEMBER ME (author unknown)

 

To the living, I am gone

To the sorrowful, I will never return

To the angry, I was cheated

But to the happy, I am at peace

And to the faithful, I have never left

I cannot speak, but I can listen

I cannot be seen, but I can be heard

So as you stand upon the shore

Gazing at the beautiful sea, remember me

As you look in awe at a mighty forest

And its grand majesty, remember me

Remember me in your hearts,

In your thoughts, and the memories of the

Times we loved, the times we cried,

the battle we fought and the times we laughed

For if you always think of me,

I will never have gone.

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SONG OF THE RIVER by William Randolph Hearst

The snow melts on the mountain

And the water runs down to the spring,

And the spring in a turbulent fountain,

With a song of youth to sing,

Runs down to the riotous river,

And the river flows to the sea,

And the water again

Goes back in rain

To the hills where it used to be.

 

And I wonder if Life's deep mystery

Isn't much like the rain and the snow

Returning through all eternity

To the places it used to know.

For life was born on the lofty heights

And flows in a laughing stream

To the river below

Whose onward flow

Ends in a peaceful dream.

 

And so at last,

When our life has passed

And the river has run its course,

It again goes back,

O'er the selfsame track,

To the mountain which was its source.

 

So why prize life

Or why fear death,

Or dread what is to be?

The river ran its allotted span

Till it reached the silent sea.

 

The the water harked back to the mountaintop

To begin its course once more.

So we shall run the course begun

Till we reach the silent shore.

 

Then revisit earth in a pure rebirth

From the heart of the virgin snow.

So don't ask why we live or die,

Or wither, or when we go,

Or wonder about the mysteries

That only God may know.

 

Sonnet 29 - William Shakespeare

 

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

 

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

 

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee – and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

 

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

 

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WE ARE LIKE CHILDREN by Joshua L. Liebman

(from Peace of Mind)

 

We are like children privileged to spend a day in a great park, a park filled with many gardens and playgrounds and azure-tinted lakes with white boats sailing upon the tranquil waves.

 

True, the day allotted to each one of us is not the same in length,

in light, in beauty. Some children of earth are privileged to spend a long and sunlit day in the garden of the earth. For others, the day is shorter, cloudier, and dusk descends more quickly as in a winter's tale.

 

But whether our life is a long, summery day, or a shorter wintry afternoon, we know that inevitably there are storms and squalls which overcast even the blues of heaven. And there are sunlit rays which pierce the darkest Autumn sky.

 

The day that we are privileged to spend in the great park of life is not the same for all human beings, but there is enough beauty, and joy, and gaiety in the hours which are ours, if we will but treasure them.

 

Then, for each one of us, the moment comes when the great nurse, death, takes man or woman - the child - by the hand, and quietly says “It is time to come home. Night is coming. It is your bedtime, child of earth. Come, you're tired. Lie down at last in the quiet of the nursery and sleep. Sleep well. The day is gone. Stars shine in the canopy of eternity - above you, below you, around you, and within you.” 

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When I Die   Author Unknown (1st Reading – Chapel Service)

 

When I die

Give what's left of me away

To children

And old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,

Cry for your brother

Walking the street beside you.

And when you need me,

Put your arms

Around anyone

And give them

What you need to give to me.

 

I want to leave you something,

Something better

Than words

Or sounds.

 

Look for me

In the people I've known

Or loved.

And if you cannot give me away,

Al least let me live on your eyes

And not on your mind.

 

You can love me most

By letting

Hands touch hands,

By letting

Bodies touch bodies,

And by letting go

Of children

That need to be free.

 

Love doesn't die,

People do.

So, when all that's left of me

Is love,

Give me away.

 

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II CORINTHIANS 4   Verses 6; 8-10; 18

(2nd Reading – Chapel Service)

 

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

 

We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed but not in despair.

Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

 

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.