Two short images sit side by side here, and the poem leaves you to work out how they connect. The first is stark: frost lying white on a gibbet, the frame used for hanging people. It's cold, still, and a little ominous. Nothing happens in it. The frost simply covers an instrument of violence as if it were any fence post.
The second image turns to talk. The speaker says the grammar "out here in the country" is "buttery as lard." That's a funny, earthy comparison. It suggests that local speech is soft, rich, and a bit greasy, not clipped or proper. The speaker seems to listen with affection but also with some wry distance, noticing how people talk rather than correcting them.
Put together, the lines create a mood of quiet unease mixed with dry humor. Country life feels warm and comforting in its speech, yet the gibbet hints at something harsher underneath. The poem doesn't say which view is right, and that gap is where its tension lies.