Poems — Third Series by Emily Dickinson, Mabel Loomis Todd

If I May Have It When It’s Dead

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.

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