Funeral Poem for a Seaman or Sailor

Our funeral poem for a seaman collection includes funeral poems suitable for seamen or sailors, sailing or yachting enthusiasts, or anyone who has worked or played in a nautical environment.

Memorial Day - The Bugle Echos

Memorial Day

The bugle echoes shrill and sweet,
But not of war it sings to-day.
The road is rhythmic with the feet
Of men-at-arms who come to pray.
The roses blossom white and red
On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
And martial music cleaves the sky.
Above their wreath-strewn
graves we kneel,
They kept the faith and
fought the fight.
Through flying lead and
crimson steel
They plunged for Freedom
and the Right.
May we, their grateful children, learn
Their strength, who lie
beneath this sod,
Who went through fire
and death to earn
At last the accolade of God.
In shining rank on rank arrayed
They march, the legions of the Lord;
He is their Captain unafraid,
The Prince of Peace . . .
Who brought a sword.

Joyce Kilmer

Funeral Poems: 

The Officer's Grave

The Officer's Grave by Henry F Lyte

There is in the lone, lone sea
A spot unmark'd but holy ;
For there the gallant and the free
In his ocean-bed lies lowly.

Down, down, beneath the deep
That oft in triumph bore him.
He sleeps a sound and peaceful sleep
With the wild waves dashing o'er him.

He sleeps ! — he sleeps ! serene and safe
From tempest and from billow.
Where storms that high above him chafe
Scarce rock his peaceful pillow.

The sea and him in death
They did not dare to sever :
It was his home when he had breath :
'Tis now his home for ever I

Sleep on, sleep on, thou mighty dead !
A glorious tomb they've found thee ;
The broad blue sky above thee spread :
The boundless ocean round thee.

Henry F Lyte (1793-1847)

Funeral Poems: 

For The Fallen - They shall not grow old

For The Fallen

This poem is well known for the words

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them

The whole poem reads as follows:

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Laurence Binyon (1869-1943

Funeral Poems: 

Sea Fever ( for seaman, sailor, fisherman )

Funeral Poems : Sea Fever

Funeral poems for a sailor, funeral poems for a seaman, funeral poems for a fisherman

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

John Masefield 1878-1967

Funeral Poems: 

Crossing The Bar (sailor, seaman fisherman)

Funeral Poems for a seaman, sailor, fisherman,

Funeral Poems : The sandbar (a ridge of sand built up by currents along a shore) is used as a metaphor to describe the barrier between life and death.

Funeral Poems : Crossing The Bar

Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Funeral Poems: 

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