Poems and music

You are free to combine The Lord’s My Shepherd with Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful world. Music plays an increasingly large role in funerals, in many cases it is a very effective way to reflect the deceased’s personality and can really communicate with and bring out fond memories for everyone. Certain parishes can be restrictive with the playing of CDs, but many of them are very accommodating.

If you choose a church funeral you will have to follow a certain framework:

Funeral Programme

How a Swedish Church funeral is carried out is regulated in Den Svenska kyrkohandboken and in Kyrkoordning för Svenska kyrkan. It assumes that the deceased is a member of the Swedish Church.

  1. Bells
  2. Entrance music
  3. Song/Music
  4. Hymn
  5. Funeral ceremony
  6. Hymn
  7. Altar service/Prayer
  8. Hymn
  9. Farewells
  10. Song/Music
  11. Exit music
  12. Bells

To listen to different pieces of music go to

www.kyrkomusik.se

Poems

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one:
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods:
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden

Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep
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.

Mary Frye

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Prayer of St Francis