He’d got his bowler on, Mr Pedder,
she in her wedding whites by the river at St Peter’s
and congregations of hundreds in their Edwardian best,
the shock up at St James’s sent them down
from New Brad’ll, the fright of no licence there for marriage,
they’re down here quick for a legal union in the remains.
Around us walls hold in history from eleven hundred,
of kings, the occasional queen, a mighty civil war,
the setting up of Parliament. They’ve spliced the knot now,
the Pedders. The Selby’s family is written here,
on graves left in turf that lean
or lie half broken in a state of lichen and pity,
a forgotten William with faded surname,
and one sacred to the memory of someone’s Kitty.