If I should die
If I should die
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.
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.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme