If I may have it when it's dead
Emily Dickinson · 1896
Public domain
From Poems by Emily Dickinson, published in 1896. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
If I may have it when it's dead
I will contented be;
If just as soon as breath is out
It shall belong to me,
Until they lock it in the grave,
'T is bliss I cannot weigh,
For though they lock thee in the grave,
Myself can hold the key.
Think of it, lover! I and thee
Permitted face to face to be;
After a life, a death we'll say, --
For death was that, and this is thee.