Funeral reading
No Man Is an Island (Meditation XVII)
John Donne
“No Man Is an Island (Meditation XVII)” by John Donne is a prose reading read at a funeral or memorial service. It takes about 40 seconds read aloud, usually by the officiant. It is in the public domain, so the full text is printed on this page and goes straight into a ceremony script.
The full text
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 is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine 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.
Public domain, so these words can be printed in a ceremony script or an order of service.
Where it comes from
The passage is from Meditation XVII of Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, written in December 1623 as he recovered from a serious illness and published in 1624.
What it says
Nobody stands alone. Every person is a piece of a larger land, so when the sea washes away even a clod of earth, the whole continent is smaller, as surely as if a headland or a friend’s house had gone. That is why any death diminishes the speaker: everybody is bound up in everybody else. So there is no need to send someone out to ask who the funeral bell is ringing for. It rings for you, the listener, because a loss to one person is a loss to all.
For someone whose death took something out of a whole community. Read at a funeral or memorial service. Themes: no man is an island · for whom the bell tolls · a community loss · someone who held a town together · short.
Who it suits
Someone whose death took something from a whole community: a teacher, a doctor, a shopkeeper, a coach, a volunteer, the neighbor who knew everyone. It suits large funerals where many people knew the person in different ways, and civic or workplace memorials. It works at religious and non-religious services alike; Donne was a priest, but this passage needs no faith to land.
Where it goes in the ceremony
Early in the service, after the welcome, to name what everyone in a crowded room has in common. The officiant can read it as part of the opening words, or a colleague or community member can read it.
Reading it aloud
The text on this page is 81 words. At a ceremony pace of about 130 words a minute, which is slower than conversation, that comes to about 35 seconds of reading.
- It is two long sentences. Map your breaths in advance: one after “a part of the main”, one after “mine own were”, one before “and therefore”.
- “Main” means the mainland, and “clod” is a lump of earth. Read them with confidence; the sense carries even if a listener does not know the words.
- Make “it tolls for thee” quiet rather than dramatic. It works best said almost directly to the room.
- If you have the person’s town or workplace in mind, a short sentence afterwards connecting the two is all the commentary it needs.
Questions about reading it aloud
How long does “No Man Is an Island (Meditation XVII)” take to read aloud?
“No Man Is an Island (Meditation XVII)” takes about 40 seconds read aloud at a ceremony pace, which is slower than conversation — roughly 130 words a minute. That is the figure the run-sheet uses when it works out the timing for the whole service.
Who usually reads “No Man Is an Island (Meditation XVII)”?
Usually the officiant rather than a guest reader. “No Man Is an Island (Meditation XVII)” runs about 40 seconds, which sits inside the part of the service the officiant is already leading, and keeping it there means it is carried by the person who has rehearsed it.
Can “No Man Is an Island (Meditation XVII)” be printed in a ceremony script?
Yes. It is in the public domain, so the full text is on this page and can be printed in a script or an order of service.
Where this text was checked
Checked word for word against a full-text edition that is itself the authority — a Project Gutenberg or Wikisource transcription, a publisher’s own edition, or the issuing body’s page.
Checked
A reading is two minutes of the hour.
The rest is the welcome, the life, the remembrances, the committal — and knowing what comes next. Answer some questions about them and get the whole service, written out, with this reading in its place.
Other readings that suit the same service
- Death Be Not Proud (Holy Sonnet X)a minute and a halfDonne’s sonnet arguing with death itself
- A Closing, with no prayer35 secondsA closing that tells the community to keep hold of each other
- Ecclesiastes 3:1–8a minute and a halfAnother short reading about the shared seasons of life
- Gone From My Sight — the shipa minute and a halfAttributed to Luther F. Beecher; widely printed as Henry Van Dyke
- Death Is Nothing At Alltwo minutesHenry Scott Holland
- On Death, from The Prophet55 secondsKahlil Gibran