I always seem to get my best lines by accident. The last-minute, "dammit I need something in that spot to make it scan" insertions get more praise than the gorgeous pentameters I spent hours wearing my brain down to a nub for. Go figgur.

it did have a nice sense of All Death Ever, I thought; a bit like all those dead maidens in ballads who end up in clay and sods of earth.

Right, exactly!