She Is Gone by David Harkins: The Poem the Queen Chose

She Is Gone — often known by its opening line, “You can shed tears that she is gone” — is one of the most requested modern funeral poems, and it carries one of the best true stories in contemporary verse: an unknown amateur poet from a small Cumbrian town, whose words were chosen by Queen Elizabeth II for her own mother’s funeral — while the order of service credited them to “Anon.” Here is the poem with its proper attribution, the story of how it reached Westminster Abbey, what its paired lines mean, and how to use it — including as He Is Gone — at a service.

The remarkable story: from a Cumbrian bedroom to Westminster Abbey

On 9 April 2002, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was held at Westminster Abbey before a television audience of millions. Printed on the order of service, at the Queen’s own choice, was this poem — attributed to “Anon.” The choice was widely praised: a plainspoken, comforting piece amid the pomp of a state occasion. Then the newspapers went looking for the anonymous author.

The trail led not to a Victorian anthology but to David Harkins, a then-unknown amateur poet and painter from Silloth, a small seaside town in Cumbria. Harkins had written the poem in 1981, in his early twenties — and here the story takes its strangest turn: it was not written about a death at all. It began as a love poem about a young woman he adored and could not have; the “gone” of the title was hers, not the grave’s. The verses circulated for two decades without his name, were reshaped by readers into a funeral poem, and eventually landed — authorless — on the desk of whoever compiled readings for the most watched funeral in Britain. Harkins, who was earning a living painting and working ordinary jobs, learned that the Queen had chosen his words only when journalists knocked on his door.

Unlike some authors of famous funeral poems, Harkins has generally welcomed the poem’s life in the world: he has permitted its use at services and in orders of service, asking essentially one thing — that it be credited to him rather than to “author unknown.” That is why, unlike The Dash, we can print it here in full, with his name where it belongs. (We still don’t offer a downloadable PDF — the poem remains his copyright, and attribution travels badly once a file leaves a page.)

A poem of paired alternatives: what it means

Structurally, She Is Gone is one device repeated six times — and the repetition is the meaning. Every couplet opens with something grief wants to do (“You can shed tears…”, “You can close your eyes…”) and answers it with an alternative (“Or you can smile…”, “Or you can open your eyes…”). The poem never says grief is wrong. Each first line is allowed to stand — tears, prayer, emptiness, looking backward are all named without judgment. The consolation is entirely in the word “or”: at every turn, the mourner is reminded that a choice exists.

Tears or a smile. The famous opening couplet sets the frame: the same fact — she is gone, she has lived — can be read as loss or as gift. Nothing about the fact changes; only the direction you face it from.

Closed eyes or open eyes. The second pair contrasts praying for the impossible (that she will come back) with seeing what is actually present — everything she left behind: family, memories, influence, love.

An empty heart or a full one. The middle couplet is the tenderest. Absence and love are the same-shaped hole; the poem suggests the emptiness is the love, seen from its dark side, and can be turned over.

Yesterday or tomorrow. The fourth pair addresses time: you can live in the past, or let the past be the reason the future is worth having — “happy for tomorrow because of yesterday” is the poem’s most quoted phrase after its opening.

Only that she is gone, or that her memory lives. The fifth couplet distinguishes remembering the loss from remembering the person — the difference between a memory that ends at the graveside and one that keeps working in the world.

The final gathering. The last couplet does something quietly clever: it sweeps up every first line — cry, close, empty, turn your back — into a single sentence, then answers them all at once with what she would want. For the only time in the poem, the choice is grounded not in the mourner’s willpower but in the wishes of the person who died. That shift is why the ending lands: going on stops being a betrayal of the dead and becomes an act of obedience to them.

He Is Gone: adapting the poem

Many people search for this poem as He Is Gone — and that version is just as legitimate. Because the poem’s machinery is its paired alternatives rather than any detail about the person, it adapts perfectly: simply change “she” to “he” and “her” to “him” throughout (“You can shed tears that he is gone, / Or you can smile because he has lived…”). Families also read it as “they” for a gender-neutral version, and celebrants sometimes substitute the person’s name in the final line (“do what Margaret would want”). Harkins’s poem has been read in every one of these forms at services for fathers, husbands, brothers, and friends — if you adapt it, keep the attribution to David Harkins, since the poem is his in every pronoun.

When to use it at a funeral

She Is Gone is entirely secular — no heaven, no angels, no doctrine — which makes it one of the strongest choices for humanist and non-religious services, while remaining perfectly at home in a church (Westminster Abbey, after all). Its permission-giving tone suits celebrations of life especially well, and celebrants often place it near the end of a service, as a bridge from mourning to the gathering afterwards. It is a natural fit for a long life fully lived — the reason it suited a 101-year-old Queen Mother — and for services where the family’s explicit wish is that people leave smiling. After a sudden or very early death, its briskness can feel premature; in that case something gentler, like Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep or When Tomorrow Starts Without Me, may serve better. You’ll find more options among our funeral readings.

How to read it aloud

The whole poem takes under a minute, and its danger is monotony: six couplets with the same shape can flatten into a list. The fix is to honor the hinge. Read each first line plainly, letting it be sad; pause briefly; then lift your tone very slightly on “Or you can…” — the poem is six small turns from dark to light, and your voice should make each turn audible. Slow down for the final couplet, which is longer than the rest, and take a full breath before the last line so its four verbs — smile, open your eyes, love, go on — arrive one at a time. It reads beautifully as a closing reading, immediately before the committal or the final piece of music.

For more poems that share its spirit of permission and gratitude, browse our collection of funeral poems, or see Death Is Nothing at All — another reading beloved at British funerals, with its own surprising backstory.