A Sonnet on Death

A Sonnet on Death

I dreamt I had died in a stranger’s place
where nobody knew my name.
There wasn’t among them a familiar face,
yet they treated me just the same
as they would have one of their own,
though stranger was I to them.
They took my body into their home,
made ready the coffin then.
In lace and silk they dressed me clean,
combed my hair and smoothed my face.
Then sat they to eat a dinner so lean,
before laying me in my place.
The gravedigger dug his hole, six feet deep,
to embrace me in my eternal sleep.