Thinking About St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx

I was doing as the above title says I was doing and I googled the song composed below by Bill Black.

Composer's note: St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx section of New York City is the resting place for three of the finest musicians that ever graced the tradition: Michael Coleman, James Morrison, and Johnny Cronin. This song is dedicated to them and to all of the musicians of bygone days who rest in Saint Raymond's.

(1) There is a place that I know well
A city in a city
Where sleep so many people
With names that few recall
And in this place so vast and sad
Three stones you would not notice
No different from the others
Not grand or proud or tall
But they mark the final resting place
And the final bars of music
From fiddles that were magic
And hands that held the keys
And as you stand and listen there
You think to hear them playing
And shiver in the restless wind
That stirs the brittle trees

(CHORUS) So softly falls the midnight snow
To chill the silent angels
And kiss the grass before it melts

(after v.1) on Michael Coleman's grave
(after v.2) on Johnny Cronin's grave
(after v.3) on Jamesy Morrison's grave

(2) Where are the halls whose noisy crowds
Fell silent as they listened
To Coleman's gifted fingers
Lift diamonds out of steel?
Who laughed at Cronin's comedy
Up in the old Bunratty? -
Five-thirty in the morning
Still time for one more reel
You could not find those places now
Or friends so long departed
But few here would remember
And fewer still be sad
Where names are only chisel marks
And hearts are only ashes
And passion a forgotten thing
No longer good nor bad

(chorus) (3) The iron gates will turn to rust
And marble angels crumble:
And granite melt to flowers
When memories are no more
But music fills eternity
And fiddles sound in
Heaven And Coleman plays a hornpipe
Cronin's never heard before -
So stand awhile and and hear, and hear
The wind that shakes the branches
And listen now more closely
For the tune that has no name
And say a prayer for all their souls
The great and the forgotten
Who brightened all around them
With music's gentle flame

Words and music:
Bill Black
c 1996
Sunphone Ltd.