Full List of Readings

JOYCE GRENFELL’S POEM

“ If I should go before the rest of you,
Break not a flower, nor inscribe a stone,
Nor, when I’m gone, speak in a Sunday voice,
But be the usual selves That I have known.
Weep if you must:
Parting is hell,
But life goes on
So...sing as well!”

Happy the Man ( John Dryden 1631 - 1700 )

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
           Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

The Garden at Dusk

In the cool of a garden
when evening draws in
Serenity waits where the
shadows begin.
In the fragrance of dusk
and the murmur of clover
The cares that we carry
pass peacefully over.

Flowers in the fullness
shed blessing about
And the turmoil of living
fades quietly out.
Hope glimmers through
with the evening star
And anxieties shrink to
the size that they are.

A beautiful memory left behind
of someone who was good and kind.

A life made good by kindly deeds
and generous thoughts for others needs.

Afterglow

I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one.
I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when life
is done.
I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down
the ways.
Of happy times and laughing times and bright
and sunny days.
I’d like the tears of those who grieve, to dry
before the sun.
Of happy memories that I leave when life is
done

Carol Mirkel