Memorial Poems for Services and Tributes
Curated by the Writory editorial team. Updated October 2026.
Quick answer: Read 8 of the best memorial poems for services and tributes, from Rossetti and Tennyson to Dickinson and Stevenson. Full texts, with notes on choosing one.
A memorial poem is read some time after the funeral, to people who have had a while to absorb it, and that changes what works. These eight are shorter and steadier than the funeral poems, and none of them asks the room to cry again.
Tennyson's 'Crossing the Bar' is the standard and remains the safest choice. He asked that it be printed at the end of every edition of his poems, which tells you he meant it as a last word rather than a performance. Stevenson's 'Requiem' is carved on his own grave and reads in forty seconds.
Dickinson is here twice and the two are very different. 'Because I could not stop for Death' has death arriving as a courteous caller with a carriage, and is the most quoted poem in American English on this subject. 'The Bustle in a House' is about the morning after, the sweeping up and the putting away of love, and it is the one that tends to undo people who have done it.
William Johnson Cory's 'Heraclitus' is the choice for a friend rather than a relative. They told me you were dead, it begins, and the poem is about being told, which is a specific and usually unaddressed part of it.
Landor's four lines are the shortest thing here. Death stands above him whispering low in a language he does not know, and no comfort is offered at all, which some occasions need.
If you are reading at a memorial, choose the shortest poem that is true rather than the finest one available. The room has usually heard enough fine words by then.
Remember
Christina Rossetti · Victorian · Sonnet
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
The classic memorial reading: it asks for remembrance and then, in the final turn, sets the rememberers free.
Crossing the Bar
Alfred, Lord Tennyson · Victorian
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.
Tennyson asked that this close every collection of his poems. It closes memorial services for the same reason: departure as a calm voyage home.
Requiem
Robert Louis Stevenson · Victorian
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Carved on Stevenson's own grave in Samoa. Eight lines, easily read aloud, and the truest short tribute to a life gladly lived.
The Bustle in a House
Emily Dickinson · American
The Bustle in a House
The Morning after Death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon Earth --
The Sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity --
The sweeping up the heart: Dickinson catches the strange quiet housework of the days after a death better than anyone before or since.
Heraclitus
William Johnson Cory · Victorian
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept as I remembered how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
For a friend above all. Tired the sun with talking is the line people remember, and the last line is the whole argument of a memorial.
The Noble Nature
Ben Jonson · Elizabethan
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night,
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
The one to read when the life was shorter than it should have been: in short measures life may perfect be.
Death Stands Above Me
Walter Savage Landor · Victorian
Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.
Four lines only, which makes it perfect for an order of service or the base of a photograph: no fear, and nothing wasted.
Because I could not stop for Death
Emily Dickinson · American
Because I could not stop for Death --
He kindly stopped for me --
The Carriage held but just Ourselves --
And Immortality.
We slowly drove -- He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility --
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess -- in the Ring --
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain --
We passed the Setting Sun --
Or rather -- He passed Us --
The Dews drew quivering and Chill --
For only Gossamer, my Gown --
My Tippet -- only Tulle --
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground --
The Roof was scarcely visible --
The Cornice -- in the Ground --
Since then -- 'tis Centuries -- and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity --
Death arrives as a courteous driver and the ride passes a whole remembered life: school, fields, sunset. The gentlest long view in American poetry.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good poem to read at a memorial service?
Rossetti's 'Remember' and Tennyson's 'Crossing the Bar' are the two most read: both are calm, both are under twenty lines, and both end on comfort rather than grief. Stevenson's 'Requiem' works when you want something shorter.
What is a short memorial poem for a card or a plaque?
Landor's 'Death Stands Above Me' is four lines and fearless, and the last two lines of Stevenson's 'Requiem' ('Home is the sailor, home from sea') fit a plaque or an order of service on their own.
What memorial poem suits the loss of a close friend?
Cory's 'Heraclitus' was written for exactly that: the friend you tired the sun with talking to. Its closing line, that death takes all away but the voices it cannot take, says what most eulogies are reaching for.
Is there a memorial poem for a life cut short?
Ben Jonson's 'The Noble Nature' argues in ten lines that a short life can be a complete one: 'in short measures life may perfect be.' It is often chosen for younger people and reads well aloud.
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