They buried my body on Christmas,
In the ground by the south river bank.
Worked to my death, for my very last breath,
I'd the Winchester Bishops to thank.
Now the church held the keys to the brothel,
Lit the window with a burning red light.
While I teased the funds from the pockets of johns,
The Bishop got rich in the night.

But I didn’t fall apart through my years in the dark,
For my lover I guarded my pure, pure heart.

And he meets me in the graveyard, the graveyard where they made my bed,
Plants a white flower under cold stars, on the grave of the forgotten dead.

Now the Bishops snuck off to fresh pastures,
While my grave was grown over with weeds.
No burial plots, just some forget-me-nots
For the women they branded unclean.
The wasteland was claimed by the city;
They covered it with tenement slums.
For where we’d been left had never been blessed,
And they dug down and built on our bones.

But every December, with frost on his fingers,
My lover returns, for he still remembers.

The sun goes down and the last folk leave,
It’s London Town on Christmas Eve.
My lover still wanders bereft and bereaved,
For he can’t find the woman that he promised he’d meet.
The sun comes up on the cold, cold ground.
It’s Christmas morning in London Town.
He lays on my grave and he cradles his head,
And as he hears the church bells, he knows that I’m dead.

So London, don’t mourn for your lovers;
Raise a glass for us glorious dead.
For beneath Southwark streets, we outlasted the priests,
And the city’s raised up on our beds.
Though we’re gone, London, do not forget:

To meet us on Christmas in the graveyard where they made our bed.
Plant a white flower for the outcasts on the graves of the forgotten dead.
In the Graveyard of the Outcast Dead.