The dead lay rotting in their beds,
On the road, piled beside their half-dug graves
For now they outnumber the living
And soon the living will carry the dead
As the relentless Winter closes colder
There is little of food and less of warmth
As the cursed lay untended and thrashing in filth
In the depth of the darkest days
The huddle in black cold, alone or in pairs
By the weakening flames of a fading fire
As they await the dire marks of the curse
And they shiver into the throes of deadly fever
In their lonely death, in the cold dark days
They will never know if they were the last
Empty vistas of moor and mountain
Embrace this valley of burgeoning green
Where amongst the silent houses
The crops have gone to seed
And the fould have fled the coup
A door hangs ajar, beats lowly in the breeze
The wood rots slowly in the swirling wind
In the endless silence, every child of this place
Every mother, father, friend and fiend
Is cursed now with the same grim face
Of sunken eye and putrid skin
Shrivelled lips bare grinning teeth
And in the lonely silence, there is not a soul
To remember that here, there once was life
