Clumsy Undertakers

Please accept our sympathy,
the undertaker told the wife.
Your husband was a splendid chap.
I knew him all his life.

But when carrying the coffin down the stairs,
they gave the bannister knob a bash.
Knocking it off the Bannister Post.
And it fell to the floor with a "crash"

And the coffin lid flew open,
and the corpse sat up with a start.
For the crashing of the Bannister Knob
had restarted the dead man's heart.

And he went on to live for ten more years.
And then he expired again.
And the people who came to collect him,
turned out to be the same.

And as they carried him down the stairs.
The widow went down before.
And lifting the knob from the bannister post.
She laid it quietly down on the floor.