Versos English Samuel E. Kiser Ben King’S Verse

English poem

Ben King’S Verse

by (1862–1942)

Listen in the reader

If I Should Die To-Night

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.

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● 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.