Memorial Verses for Humanists, Atheists, and Agnostics

Walking to the subway station after the cremation of his long-time colleague Sonia Clements, James de Witt, a partner in London's esteemed Peverell Press in P. D. James' 1994 murder mystery "Original Sin," ruminates on the unsatisfying funeral he has just witnessed. "There should, he thought, be a service designed for those without a religion . . . . It might be an interesting . . . publishing venture, a book of alternative funeral rites for humanists, atheists, and agnostics, a formal ceremony of remembrance, a celebration of the human spirit with no reference to its possible continuing existence. Striding to the station . . . he amused himself selecting passages of prose and verse which might be included. De la Mare's 'Look thy last on all things lovely' for a touch of nostalgic melancholy. Perhaps . . . Keats' 'Ode to Autumn' . . . " This is the slender volume he outlined that pensive September afternoon.