When I Am Dead

The sun will rise and shine all day,

The music of the spheres will play,

The stars will shine the same old way

     When I am dead.

The world won’t slip a single cog

Upon its slow, eternal jog,

And tides will ebb and tides will flow,

And morns will come and morns will go,

     When I am dead.

When I am dead the birds will sing

And summer’ll come right after spring,

And folks will have their troubles yet,

And envy my cold corpse, I bet,

     When I am dead.

And bills will come from everywhere,

But I won’t know and I won’t care;

For every man at last is square

     When he is dead.

May 24, 1900