"If I Should Die"

If I Should Die

If I should die—then would the old love spring 

Up from the fallow wastes within thy heart; 

Straight would the flower from the old roots start— 

But oh! what deathless thorns would ache and sting. 

If I should die—but nay! If I should live 

And stumble on my way with bleeding feet— 

Dearest, might not the old flow’r, newly sweet, 

Rise from the weed-choked past—if I should live?

A draft of "If I Should Die" on onionskin paper, courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham WA. 

"If I Should Die" appears in Ella Higginson's When the Birds Go North Again (1898).