Part 2 — "IF I SHOULD DIE TO-NIGHT"
Reading edition
After Arabella Eugenia Smith
If I should die to-night And you should come to my cold corpse and say, Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay— If I should die to-night, And you should come in deepest grief and woe— And say: "Here's that ten dollars that I owe," I might arise in my large white cravat And say, "What's that?"
If I should die to-night And you should come to my cold corpse and, kneel, Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel, I say, if I should die to-night And you should come to me, and there and then Just even hint at paying me that ten, I might arise the while, But I'd drop dead again.
Ben King [1857-1894]