In Woodvale Cemetery

Rest, Thomas Hughes. I think, if you had seen
your grave a century on, in modest shade
beneath a tree, fitting into the green
Earth-chamber, you would not have been dismayed.
Your cause was justice: and for working men
always you fought. Today in still repose
you stay unknown – though you were honoured then.
But now it is Tom Brown that everyone knows …

Tom Brown at Rugby, Oxford: sky-deep tales
of a young-man-in-the-making, that you penned,
celebrate breath itself. If death prevails
in the short run, there’s something does not end,
something of light, god-centred, that chance gave.
The motion of a butterfly round your grave.