The Pauper's Drive

Rattle his bones
Over the stones
It’s only a pauper
Who Nobody owns 
– Traditional Nursery Rhyme

The poem that Neil used in the Graveyard Book was written by Thomas Noel (1841) talks about a pauper who just died that is bumped around roughly in a broken hearse; Nail Gaiman used this epigraph to refer the book, "Nobody" is the baby's name and "owns" could refer to the Owens who adopted the child, the scene takes place in the graveyard, maybe in a tumb in which the "Rattle" of the bones could refer the baby playing with the bones "rattling" them, the bones  of the Owens or their parents that just died. Eventhough the original poem is about the pauper which is on the way to the graveyard it also talks about death. Them man dies without money, friends, or family, he’s still owned by God.

The poem argues that it is disrespectful to honor the dead based on how much money they had while they were living. In The Graveyard Book, "who Nobody own" seems to mean that Nobody Owens owns or claims the pauper. Since Nobody is a friend of the dead, (refering to their parents's death) this would be a good thing, it suggests that it's up to compassionate, 

Gaiman said in the book that in a graveyard the democracy it doesn’t exist eventhough death is a great democracy, like in the first chapter all the deaths argue and say their opinion as to “whether the living child should be allowed to stay”.

Death is the great democracy because it does not discriminate. It strikes the poor

as well as the rich, and everyone in the world must encounter it. When people are

dead, they can not leave the graveyard since their bones are buried there. They may

walk in the graveyard, but the potential to change is finished.