There’s no easy way to say goodbye to your wife. She was your partner and the person who knew you better than anyone. And now you’re being asked to find words for a loss.
A poem can help with finding those words. Sometimes a few lines written by someone else say exactly what you can’t.
Reading those words out loud at her service or putting them inside a card is a way you can honor her when you can’t manage to say what you’re thinking.
So I’ve got here some of the most loving funeral poems for a wife. Some are short enough for a memorial card and some are written from a husband’s perspective.
Others are about the wife and mother she was or talk about her faith. A few are classics you may already know.
If you’re also looking for the words you’ll speak yourself you might find our eulogy examples for a wife and words of sympathy for the loss of a wife helpful alongside these.
Short Funeral Poems for a Wife
Short poems work well on the back of an order of service, inside a card or read aloud. These short poems are simple and easy to share.
My Wife, My Always
You were my morning,
my quiet at night,
my soft place to land,
my reason, my light.
Though you have gone
where I cannot see,
you’ll live in my heart
for as long as there’s me.
********************************
Still Here
She is not gone, not really gone,
she’s in the songs we played,
the chair she loved, the words she said,
the little plans we made.
Wherever love has left its mark,
that’s where you’ll find my wife,
not lost to me, but woven through
the whole of this sweet life.
********************************
When I Am Dead, My Dearest
By Christina Rossetti
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
Funeral Poems for a Wife from Her Husband
If you’re the one she married these are written from your point of view. They’re meant to be read in your voice even if you struggle. That difficulty is part of the tribute.
The Better Half of Me
People said you were my better half,
and they were right, they always knew.
You softened all my hardest edges,
made me kinder, made me true.
So if I’m only half now, love,
that’s only fair and fitting,
for half my heart went on ahead,
and there it sits, sweetly waiting.
********************************
Thank You for the Years
Thank you for the breakfasts,
the arguments we’d lose,
the holidays, the quiet nights,
the side of the bed you’d choose.
Thank you for the ordinary days
I didn’t know to treasure,
they turned out to be the whole of it,
my truest, deepest pleasure.
I’d marry you a thousand times
and lose you just as sore,
because a love like ours, my girl,
was worth the breaking for.
********************************
How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
SEE MORE: Eulogy Examples for a Wife
Religious Funeral Poems for a Wife
For the families who are religious and take comfort from their faith these poems talk about the hope of being reunited and the belief that she’s safe and at peace.
Safely Home
She is safely home, my faithful wife,
her work on earth is done,
the race she ran was full of grace,
and now her rest is won.
No more the weariness or pain,
no more the long goodbye,
just the gentle keeping of the Lord
in a home beyond the sky.
And though I’ll miss her every day
until my own race ends,
I trust the One who holds her now
to make us whole again.
********************************
Until We Meet Again
Go now, my love, into His arms,
there’s nothing left to fear.
He counted every tear you cried
and held you close while here.
I give you back, though it breaks me through,
to the God who gave you to me,
and I’ll carry you in faith and hope
until His face I see.
SEE MORE: Comforting Bible Verses for Funerals
Funeral Poems for a Wife and Mother
When she was a wife and a mom the loss affects everyone – husband, children, the whole feeling of a home. These honor all the roles she had.
The Heart of Our Home
She was the heart of all of us,
the center that we’d turn to,
a wife who loved her husband well,
a mom her children learned through.
She kissed the scrapes, she packed the lunches,
she stayed up through the night,
she held this family tightly
and she held it all just right.
And though her chair sits empty now,
her love is everywhere,
in every child she raised so well,
in everyone left here.
********************************
What She Left Us
She didn’t leave us money,
she left us something more,
the way she loved, the way she gave,
the open kitchen door.
She left her laugh in her daughter,
her patience in her son,
her kindness in her husband’s heart,
the good work she has done.
So when you miss her, look around,
she isn’t far at all,
she’s in the family that she made
and she’s in us, standing tall.
SEE MORE: Funeral Poems for Mom
Non Religious Funeral Poems for a Wife
Not everyone is religious or wants faith as part of their funeral. So these poems focus on love, memory and the impact she had on people’s lives as well as what she left behind.
Death Is Nothing At All
By Henry Scott Holland
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.
I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner.
All is well.
********************************
Crossing the Bar
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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 tho’ 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 crost the bar.
Famous Funeral Poems People Often Choose for a Wife
A few well known poems come up again and again at funerals. Some of these are still under copyright so can’t be printed in full here but I can point you to them by name so you can look up the full text and decide if one fits her.
- Remember by Christina Rossetti a tender poem that gives those left behind permission to grieve and eventually smile again. (Public domain, and you’ll find it in full all over the internet.)
- Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye one of the most requested funeral poems there is, picturing the departed in the wind, the snow, the morning light rather than in the grave.
- Funeral Blues (Stop All the Clocks) by W. H. Auden an unflinching poem about the size of the loss.
- She Is Gone (He Is Gone) by David Harkins the “you can shed tears that she is gone, or you can smile because she has lived” poem that is read at countless services.
- Footprints in the Sand a much loved faith poem about being carried in the hardest stretches. Lovely for a religious service.
A quick word on this: I keep these by name on purpose. The well known modern ones are protected by copyright so the respectful thing is to point you to them rather than reprint them. The older classics above, like Rossetti and Tennyson, are free for anyone to use, read aloud, or print in an order of service.
How to Choose the Right Poem for Her
- Read it out loud first. A poem can be perfect when you read it to yourself but not work when read out loud. Practice it once before the day.
- Match it to her, not to the occasion. If she laughed easily then a lighter poem is going to be better than a heavy one. If she was a woman of deep faith go with something religious.
- Short is fine. A few lines work better than a long poem. Don’t feel you have to fill time.
- Ask someone to read it for you. If you don’t trust your voice on the day get a friend or one of the children to read it. The choosing is still yours.
Final Thoughts
Whichever poem you choose it won’t say everything. No poem could.
But it doesn’t have to. It just has to reflect a little of who she was.
If you need more help putting her tribute together our eulogy examples for a wife, words of sympathy for the loss of a wife and full collection of funeral poems are all here for you.
