Thanks - that second verse, rhyming pity and pretty seemed a bit trite - youi see it coming up. So here's a version I think works better - I tend to like para-rhymes quite often:

Now here's a man, a worn and broken body -
I see he died beneath the surgeon's knife.
And here's a girl – so young and, oh the pity,
Somehow it seems she chose to take her life.
And the living move like ghosts and talk in whispers.
This City of the Dead is not for you.

And I'm with you WYSIWYG on that. Disrespect for people who work with the dead is just a step away from disrespect to the dead.

Mind, there's always been a disquiet about gravediggers - Georges Brassens had a fine song (well all his songs are fine songs) about exactly that, from the point of view of a gravedigger. It's called Le Fossoyeur If your friend can make sense of the French, I reckion he'd like it. (And that comes from a site with a massive collection of chansonnier songs which I put in the links page).