I’ve been wanting to share this poem for a while now but couldn’t find the right place to put it. I think it fits well here, at the end of October, as we approach Halloween, Samhain, All Souls Day, Dia de los Muertos, and as we conclude our monthly theme of “deep listening.”

I found this poem in August while I was researching for my sermon on religious naturalism. For me, as a religious naturalist, it provides tangible imagery for that mysterious question for which there is no answer–what happens to us after we die?

Samhain is a Celtic pagan celebration during which it is tradition to commune with the dead, as it is believed that the veil between this world and the spirit world is “thin” enough to do so. I’m not here to tell you whether or not that is possible, whether or not our souls live on after we die and we can communicate with the living–you are all on your own spiritual paths and can explore as you are called to do. Certainly, there is much mystery in the world! I enjoy Samhain rituals because they help me expand my spiritual imagination. I also love this time of the year because I find honoring our ancestors and rediscovering their dreams to be a deeply spiritual practice. But this poem excites me because it offers what I find as a practical way to “listen” to the dead: by listening to what is growing around us, especially in a graveyard. All of life goes back to the earth and becomes life once again. I think that is beautiful. What a sacred practice it is to listen to life.

“Voices from things growing in a churchyard” by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

First published in The London Mercury 1921, rev. 1922

These flowers are I, poor Fanny Hurd,

Sir or Madam,

A little girl here sepultured.

Once I flit-fluttered like a bird

Above the grass, as now I wave

In daisy shapes above my grave,

All day cheerily,

All night eerily!

I am one Bachelor Bowring, “Gent,”

Sir or Madam;

In shingled oak my bones were pent;

Hence more than a hundred years I spent

In my feat of change from a coffin-thrall

To a dancer in green as leaves on a wall.

All day cheerily,

All night eerily!

I, these berries of juice and gloss,

Sir or Madam,

Am clean forgotten as Thomas Voss;

Thin-urned, I have burrowed away from the moss

That covers my sod, and have entered this yew,

And turned to clusters ruddy of view,

All day cheerily,

All night eerily!

The Lady Gertrude, proud, high-bred,

Sir or Madam,

Am I—this laurel that shades your head;

Into its veins I have stilly sped,

And made them of me; and my leaves now shine,

As did my satins superfine,

All day cheerily,

All night eerily!

I, who as innocent with wind climb,

Sir or Madam.

Am one Eve Greensleeves, in olden time

Kissed by men from many a clime,

Beneath sun, stars, in blaze, in breeze,

As now by glowworms and by bees,

All day cheerily,

All night eerily!

I’m old Squire Audeley Grey, who grew,

Sir or Madam,

Aweary of life, and in scorn withdrew;

Till anon I clambered up anew

As ivy-green, when my ache was stayed,

And in that attire I have longtime gayed

All day cheerily,

All night eerily!

And so they breathe, these masks, to each

Sir or Madam

Who lingers there, and their lively speech

Affords an interpreter much to teach,

As their murmurous accents seem to come

Thence hither around in a radiant hum,

All day cheerily,

All night eerily!

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I hope you enjoyed the poem as much as I did! For a musical rendition of it, click on this link:

No. 5. Voices from Things Growing in a Churchyard

Happy Halloween and Blessed Samhain!