Funeral reading
A Psalm of Life — selected stanzas
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“A Psalm of Life — selected stanzas” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a poem read at a funeral or memorial service. It takes about a minute and a half read aloud, usually by a guest reader. 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
Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
Public domain, so these words can be printed in a ceremony script or an order of service.
What it is about
Aimed at the living rather than the dead. Ends on getting back to work.
Read at a funeral or memorial service. Themes: footprints on the sands of time · life is real, life is earnest · a life of work · encouraging the living · traditional.
Questions about reading it aloud
How long does “A Psalm of Life — selected stanzas” take to read aloud?
“A Psalm of Life — selected stanzas” 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 “A Psalm of Life — selected stanzas”?
Usually a guest reader rather than the officiant. “A Psalm of Life — selected stanzas” runs about a minute and a half, which is a manageable amount to hand to a friend or family member. Give them a printed copy of their own, in a size they can read without their glasses, and tell them where to stand and how you will introduce them.
Can “A Psalm of Life — selected stanzas” 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.