The poem imagines clerks, the people who handle records and forms, treating a burial as just another piece of work. Death arrives, and they respond the way they respond to everything: with procedure. Burial is lumped in with "any other full / or ill business," a phrase that flattens good and bad occasions into the same pile of tasks.
The speaker seems to be one of these clerks, speaking as "we." The tone is dry and deadpan. "We talk gravely" suggests a performed seriousness, the right face for the occasion rather than deep feeling. The last line, "eat ink and point," is the strangest and most striking. Ink is what clerks live on, so they almost swallow their work, and pointing suggests gesturing, directing, or assigning blame without really engaging.
The mood is cool, wry, and a little uneasy. There is humor in how small and bureaucratic the clerks' response is, but also a quiet sadness in how death gets reduced to routine. The poem leaves you wondering whether this distance is a kind of protection or a kind of failure.