Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave.
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave. [ Longfellow ]

Is that a birthday? 'tis, alas! too clear;
'Tis but the funeral of the former year. [ Pope ]

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried:
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot,
O'er the grave where our hero we buried. [ Rev. C. Wolfe ]

All things that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments, to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer, to sad burial feast;
Our solemn hymns, to sullen dirges change:
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary. [ William Shakespeare ]

When wrapt in fire, the realms of ether glow,
And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below,
Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile. [ Thomas Campbell ]

A good season for courtship is, when the widow returns from the funeral. [ Proverb ]

Man should ever look to his last day, and no one should be called happy before his funeral. [ Ovid ]

Death to the Christian is the funeral of all his sorrows and evils, and the resurrection of all his joys. [ Aughey ]

Truth shines with its own light; it is not by the flames of funeral piles that the minds of men are illuminated. [ Belisarius ]

Cheerfulness is the daughter of employment; and I have known a man come home in high spirits from a funeral, merely because he has had the management of it. [ Dr. Horne ]

Death is a mighty mediator. There all the flames of rage are extinguished, hatred is appeased, and angelic pity, like a weeping sister, bends with gentle and close embrace over the funeral urn. [ Schiller ]

He was a cowboy, mister, and he loved the land. He loved it so much he made a woman out of dirt and married her. But when he kissed her, she disintegrated. Later, at the funeral, when the preacher said, Dust to dust, some people laughed, and the cowboy shot them. At his hanging, he told the others, I'll be waiting for you in heaven - with a gun. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]