Benjamin Franklin King (1857-1894)
If I should die
1If I should die to-night
2 And you should come to my cold corpse and say,
3 Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay --
4 If I should die to-night,
5And you should come in deepest grief and woe --
6 And say: "Here's that ten dollars that I owe,"
7 I might arise in my large white cravat
8 And say, "What's that?"
9If I should die to-night
10 And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel,
11 Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel,
12 I say, if I should die to-night
13And you should come to me, and there and then
14 Just even hint 'bout payin' me that ten,
15 I might arise the while,
16 But I'd drop dead again.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Ben King's Verse, ed. Nixon Waterman, introduction by John McGovern, biography by Opie Read (Chicago: Forbes, 1899): 1. PS 2169 K8 1899 Robarts Library.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/21
Rhyme: abbaccdd abbaccbc
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