If I should die to-night
And you should come to my cold corpse and say,
Weeping and heartsick o’er my lifeless clay—
If I should die to-night
And you should come in deepest grief and woe
And say, “Here’s that ten dollars that I owe”—
I might arise in my large white cravat
And say, “What’s that?”
If I should die to-night
And you should come to my cold corpse and kneel,
Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel—
I say, if I should die to-night
And you should come to me, and there and then
Just even hint ’bout payin’ me that ten,
I might arise the while;
But I’d drop dead again.
(From “Ben King’s Verse”)
“‘Ben King’s Verse’ will be appreciated by all who enjoy good
things.”—John Kendrick Bangs.
“Ben King’s verses may be recommended to those suffering from
melancholy.”—The Chicago Daily News.
“Lovers of real poetry and of quaint, whimsical humor will treasure ‘Ben
King’s Verse’ as a volume which can be read and re-read with pleasure, a
companion for all moods and times.”—The Journalist (New York).
Beautifully made. 292 pages. Price, $1.25.
FORBES & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
Box 664, CHICAGO
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’ Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.