My occupation was a'calling, like a tumor, it within me swelled
A path some found appalling, that I would come to know so well
A cadaverous career awaited, the filthy task I'd undertake
With a gruesome thirst for knowledge, that only the dead could slake
My studies dismissed as morbid, incurring the headmaster's scorn
My deathly imagination derided, and into the darkness borne
From clandestine forays into graveyards
To the operating theater's grisly scenes

My bloody studies dug ever deeper
Into the obscene and the unclean

For in death's sleep what dreams may come?
And in death's name, what deeds must be done

As an anatomist, a necrologist
But I'll never be an apologist
My chosen path, to carve up stiffs
A career dismissed​ ​as a dead end
A surgeon's trade, a butcher's blade
You mourn a rest to which you won't be laid
To serve my much derided trade
Your legacy will fade to a dead end

The pounding of my father's coffin-nails beat a dolorous refrain
But by staving in those caskets, a richer living could be gained
My heart beat time with the hammer-falls
I learned to pluck men from the grave

And earned the name of resurrection-man
Plying that reviled trade

For in death's sleep what dreams may come?
And in death's name, what deeds must be done

As a resurrectionist, a necrologist
But I'll never be an apologist
My chosen path, to dig up stiffs
A career dismissed as a dead end

A surgeon's trade, ​ a wooden spade

You mourn a rest to which you won't be laid
​To serve our much benighted trades
Your legacy will fade to a dead end