Death is Nothing at All

Henry Scott Holland

Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London 1847-1918

‘Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am I and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other that we are still.

Call me by my old familiar name

Speak to me in the easy way which you always used

Put no difference in your tone

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow

Laugh, as we always laughed

At the little jokes 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 effort

Without the ghost of a shadow on it

Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is absolute unbroken continuity.

What is death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you, for an interval,

Somewhere very near

Just around the corner.

All is well.

Nothing is past; 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!

From a sermon on death delivered in St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1910 while the body of King Edward VII was lying in state at Westminster. Reprinted from Bereaved Parents USA Fall 2006 Newsletter; The Vineyard News, Vol. 3, Issue 11.