Funeral reading
Death Is Nothing At All
Henry Scott Holland
“Death Is Nothing At All” by Henry Scott Holland is a prose reading read at a funeral or memorial service. It takes about a minute and a half 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
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that 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 an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
Public domain, so these words can be printed in a ceremony script or an order of service.
What it is about
From a 1910 sermon, in his own words rather than the version that circulates.
Read at a funeral or memorial service. Themes: I have only slipped away into the next room · call me by my old familiar name · gentle · a long marriage · an expected death · the most requested funeral reading.
Questions about reading it aloud
How long does “Death Is Nothing At All” take to read aloud?
“Death Is Nothing At All” takes about a minute and a half 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 “Death Is Nothing At All”?
Usually the officiant rather than a guest reader. “Death Is Nothing At All” runs about a minute and a half, 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 “Death Is Nothing At All” 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
- Gone From My Sight — the shipa minute and a halfAttributed to Luther F. Beecher; widely printed as Henry Van Dyke
- No Man Is an Island (Meditation XVII)35 secondsJohn Donne
- On Death, from The Prophet50 secondsKahlil Gibran
- The Body of B. Franklin, Printer — his own mock epitaph25 secondsBenjamin Franklin
- Psalm 23a minute and a halfKing James Bible
- In the Garden4 minutesC. Austin Miles, 1912