If I may have it when it's dead

Emily Dickinson

1830 to 1886

Poem Image

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.