The night is cold and wild with wind
Whose whip and sting are hard with ice.
The graveyard trees moan a mournful dirge,
The hollow anthem of the dead
With a treble piped
By the feather-flustered owl.

The stark marble gravestones lie
Pinning down the frostgreyed field.
Heavy chips of vitreous bone, petrified ice.

And the people underneath
What would satisfy them?
"Death" they would say
But no-one whose headstone simply says
"Passed away"
Has opened up the coffin lid to say
That Heaven is better than Lancashire
Or Hell is any worse....