Benjamin Franklin King

“ The cabin-boys ran back and forth in staterooms all
around,
While voices shrieked: "Oh, mercy--oop! Oh--
oop! wish I were drowned."
But I fed the fishes,
I gave them my best wishes,
I fed the fishes clear to Old St. Joe.
The pilot boldly held the wheel as through the waves
we sped,
While Purser Hancock ran abaft to hold some woman's
head;
One fellow sat him down and sand: "Good-bye,
sweetheart, good-bye;"
Most every one seemed occupied, and, sad to say,
then I--
I fed the fishes,
I fed the fishes,
I fed the fishes clear to Old St. Joe. ”

“ And mourn o'er the moments I lost in tomfoolery.
Tell me a tale that dropped out of a star,
Push me a pun that is pungent, not earthy.
I must have something sharp, strident, and strong
To eke out a laugh or be moderately mirthy.
Give me a love that has never been loved,
Not knowing the glance of the bold and unwary,
A cherup abreast with the saints up above,
And I'll get along and be passably merry. ”

“ The lingering loon flies over the marsh
And the night bird nestles in dew,
The river is cold and the winds are harsh,
But what is it that goes cuhchoo?
What is it that goes cuhchoo, cuhchoo?
Oh, what is it that goes cuhchoo? ”

“ Carest thou naught for me, lone Asphodel?
Oh, flower! Shall all the summer days long gone
Roll into space remembered not? What spell,
Nay, more, what dream, what fantasy is this?
E'en one small hour to gaze and love. ”

“ Ben King was not only a man of music; he was a poet, a gentle satirist, and a humorist of the highest order. Every company was brightened by his coming, every man felt better for having heard his quaint remarks. ”

“ Then the blackbird, well, he listened a spell
And began in garrulous run,
But he wasn't admired, for a farmer tired—
Well, he up and fired a gun.
Then the black crow said, as he rested his head:
"I want to go somewhere and die." ”

“ At the sun in its molten glow;
That's called the Nile, the tranquil Nile,
Of ages and ages ago.
On the purple sheen of its mirror heart
Her galleys bend and row,
And Egypt's queen can still be seen,
Of olden lands the foe. ”

“ I'm now on the sofa with Mary,
Mary with bright, golden hair;
But her father and mother
And sister and brother
And all of the family are there.
I'm way up the river with Mary,
Picnicking in the cool air ”

“ 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 tonight,
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?" ”

“ I'm a frog in the fall and a frog when the frost
Spreads over the land, and the forests are gray.
I'm a frog keepin' house at a very small cost
In a dug-out I've built out of cat-tails and clay.
I'm a frog with a green overcoat and a voice
That tickles the woods, when the winter's no more.
The old folks are glad and children rejoice,
At the first tap o' thunder, I let out a roar.
I'm a frog living down in the lush of the swale ”

“ Oh, love! let us love with a love that loves,
Loving on with a love forever;
For a love that loves not the love it should love--
I wot such a love will sever.
But, when two loves love this lovable love,
Love loves with a love that is best ”

“ Down from the hills and we hear the chime
Of bells that are ringing out Old Father Time;
Down from the hills we are riding away,
Nearing the life with its endless day;
Toboggan! Toboggan! Toboggan! ”

“ Show him the bossie, the horse and the bow-wow;
Soon you will hear him say "moo!" to the cow.
Keep him a baby: he'll soon be a boy,
Then he'll forsake every plaything and toy;
Keep him a baby--he'll soon be a man,
Keep him a baby as long as you can. ”

“ But ah! comes a melody far more soft
Than the troubled notes of a lydian lute
Or the echoing strains of a fairy's flute;
It bids me awaken and live and rejoice,
'Tis only the sound of Elviry's voice--
Like an angel's whisper it comes to me:--
"Wake up, you fool, and come to tea." ”

“ As he grew up, lacking the instincts that make men successful in business, he was pronounced a failure--not by those who had warmed themselves in the glow of his poetic nature, but by the man who believed that to turn over a dime and thereby to make a dollar of it was the most gracious faculty that could be bestowed upon a member of the human family. ”

“ In the deepest of scorn,
To sing his old chestnut
About stealing corn.
"Caw! Caw!" said the crow,
"Well--my deeds are by light.
I don't steal young chickens
And sit up all night,
With dew on my feathers ”

“ Is the darkest shadow. What's that--a call?
Oh, let in the light, keep that shadow away,
The one with the sickle that cuts to-day,
And far over there in the sunlands' West
I'll work in the pastur' after I rest.
"Oh, to get out o' this valley o' sin
Up in the cool o' the hillside agin!
Where are the boys? All away? Where's M'liss?
Who's holdin' my hand, an' whose arm is this?
Oh, here comes the shadow that beckons--what pain!
It must not come near me! Hear that? That rain
On the windows? See, down by the foot-board, where
The curtain moves! A shadow is there,
Comin' on tiptoe! ”

“ Where the bumblebee sips and the clover is red,
And the zephyrs come laden with peach blow
perfume,
Where the thistle-down pauses in search of the rose
And the myrtle and woodbine and wild ivy grows ”

“ Back the sage and catnip and the dired apple strings.
But ah! no other joys
Compared, when we were boys,
When we played upon the dear old attic floor.
To slowly turn the wheel--
And the spindle and the reel
Would sing the dear old song it sand of yore
Creak, creak, how it would creak,
When up to the attic we'd steal. ”

“ Her robes are exquisitely fashioned by Worth--
At eve they are décolleté;
But I, I will sing of a maiden more fair,
More innocent, too, I opine;
You can choose from society's crust, if you will,
But the girl with the jersey is mine. ”

“ How dear to my heart is the old village drugstore,
When tired and thirsty it comes to my view.
The wide-spreading sign that asks you to "Try it,"
Vim, Vaseline, Vermifuge, Hop Bitters, too.
The old rusty stove and the cuspidor by it,
That little back room. Oh! ”

“ Till he began to talk,
And when he left the kitchen door
He took the garden walk.
He said: "There's no one with me,
Because I am alone;
I might have scintillated once;
My clothes have always shone. ”

“ Just see that those lubberly eunuchs
Don't spit on my porphry floor.
You're getting infernally lazy
And looking so peeked and white.
See here, miss! Does that jay from Memphis
Think you can sit up every night? ”

“ During the years we knew him, he never spoke to us in a disparaging way concerning any other person, and unless Paderewski's comb was ruffled by Ben's exhibition of hair and haste in piano-playing, no parody, or perk, or prank of Ben King ever depended for its success upon the wounding of another creature's feelings. ”

“ And really couldn't come,
Who lived in the four hundred, was
The vain Chrysanthemum.
One floweret at the table
Grew quite ill, we must regret,
And every posy wondered, too,
Just what Miss Mignonette. ”

“ Farewell, Walhallalah,
Tender rains from ashen skies
Never more can ope the eyes
Of the angelhood that lies
Cold in Walhallalah.
Withered hopes, how like my soul,
Down in Walhallalah,
Never more shall rise and bloom ”

“ One another from their neighbors;
Over there one can't resist
The thought to praise the nihilist.
Every day and every hour
You feel the despot's potent power;
Every day you want to shoot
Some old potentate and scoot ”

“ The palace of old Gokstad Pfouski
Ivan Ruric Romanowski.
"Hark !" cried Sofie, "'tis the hour
When Moscow's bell in yonder tower
Peals a knell, and we must fly,
Or else together we must die. ”

“ She had studied evolution,
And arrived at the solution
How long our first appendage was; of course, I
didn't ask her,
But she said that she'd resolved from
What she knew, that I evolved from
A carrot-haired chimpanzee she had seen in Mada-
gascar. ”

“ Enny way, what would you do?
If my wife taught school like some women do,
And I couldn't earn quite enough for us two,
I'd go in the barnyard, without any fuss,
I would blow out my brains with a big blunderbuss. ”

“ He wrote "If I Should Die To-night"--a parody that was accepted as the true original, the sun, the center of the great If-I-should-die-to-night system of thought and poetry. He wrote the poet's lament--that there was nothing to eat but food, and nowhere to come but off. The artists of the newspaper world generously sprang to his side ”

“ Nothing to breathe but air
Quick as a flash 't is gone;
Nowhere to fall but off,
Nowhere to stand but on.
Nothing to comb but hair,
Nowhere to sleep but in bed,
Nothing to weep but tears,
Nothing to bury but dead. ”

“ Up jumps the risky little frisky
Nihilist, young John Zobiesky.
A kiss upon her lips, his hand
Upon his breast as if to brand
His vow: "You say, 'He comes to me;'
You cry: ' He comes! He comes ! ”

“ O' course what's a-keepin' me 'way from the top,
Is not never havin' no blacksmithing shop.
She said 'at Ben Franklin was awfully poor,
But full of ambition an' brains;
An' studied philosophy all his hull life,
An' see what he got for his pains! ”

“ An' they say as boys is naughty,
An' their hearts is full o' sin,
They'll crawl out in the night time
An' get underneath yer skin,
An' the doctor'll have to take a knife
An' cut 'em off jes' so,
An' if a bit of 'em is left
Another one'll grow. ”

“ Dat's de way Gord shake de rain out ob de sky;
An' when yo' hyar de soun'
Like a shubbin' tables roun'
Yo' can see de pigs a-runnin' to de sty.
But de clouds am gwine ter pass,
An' de sun shine out at las',
While de pickaninnies play aroun' de do';
An' froo de windah blinds,
Hid by mornin' glory vines,
Hit's er gwine to flicker down upon de flo'.
Gord moves in many a way,
So de ole Bible say,
Fo' He counts de drops and all de grains ob san' ”

“ With lovable, loving caresses;
For one feels that the lovingest love love can love,
Loves on in love's own lovelinesses.
And love, when it does love, in secret should love--
'Tis there where love most is admired ”

“ Fortune came to a youth one day and dressed
'im
Up in his best. While Society smiled and caressed
'im,
Along came Toil with a hammer and saw to test 'im--
And all three pressed 'im.
Manhood came, as it usually does, to bear 'im;
Virtue stole in and sat by his side, but feared 'im;
Ambition came with wonderful schemes and steered
'im--
But all three queered 'im.
Wisdom came and knocked at his door; he spurned
'im.
Frivolity came on bicycle wheels and turned 'im ”

“ I'll have to call the old cat o' nine tails in.
old
cat o' nine
tails
in.
Do you allers mind your manners when company is
come?
Er do you git upstairs 'nd yell, 'nd stomp around 'nd
drum?
Do you show off at the table, too, 'nd try to act up
smart,
'N p'int yer fingers' at the things 'nd say : " Gimme
a tart?"
If some one doesn't dress you down I think it is a
sin;
So I'11 have to call the old cat o' nine tails in—
Have to call 'im in ; yes, have to call 'im in ;
in.
tails
cat o' nine
old
I'll have to call the old cat o' nine tails in. ”

“ They said that a travelin' man er a drummer,
Who stopped at the hotel a long time last summer,
That he--no it wasn't that now--let me see--
That she--er something like that, seems to me.
Well, her folks an' hiz'n,
Er hiz'n an' her'n,
Never spoke to each other,
From what I can learn.
I hear 'at the families keep up the old fight,
A-roastin' each other from mornin' till night;
But the young maird couple they've moved to the city,
Where gossip don't go ”

“ To boyhood jest one day,
So'st' I could have my chice agin
Of games we used to play,
I'd let the kites an' marbles go,
An' say, "Come on, boys! let's
All go out a-huntin' fer
The yaller jackets' nest." ”

“ How he came to strike such an all-fired blow,
'Cept he guarded his right an' threw the hull heft
Of his weight an' his science, an' hit with his left;
That lost 'im his job; not Hank er Bob,
But the feller 'at got hit,
Lost him his job. ”

“ Hab yo' tended up to Sunday-school, an' listen'd to yo' teachah ?
Does yo' always drap a nickel to try an' spote yo' preachah ?
Am yo' wilful to yo' faddah or yo' muddah?
Does yuh pestervate yo' sistah or yo' bruddah?
Yo' bettah change yo' tacticks cause, well, jess because
Yo's undah obligashuns now to Ole Santa Claus.
Kin yo' ansuah all dese questions dat yo' pastah has perferd?
Ef yo' kaint, yo' bettah hang yo' haids en nevah say a word ;
Foh yo' pastah sort ob reckons dat de debbil's bin bo'n in yuh
An' when ole Santa Claus comes roun' he 'll surely be agin yo'. ”

“ Smart men has argyed an' lots
Of the brainiest folks has been cypherin' out,
An' all sorts of stories has riz
'Bout what the sun's made of or how it's composed,
An' lots of 'em think that it is.
O' course 'at's somepin' 'at nobody knows--
Nobody under the sun ”

“ I want to see them Wolverines at's still a-wearin'
boots.
So don' show me no minin' er animals er fish,
I'd rather see them curios from
Benton Harbor, Mich.
What d' I care for foreign folks 'at come from pagan
lands?
I've heerd an' read enough of Paig, an' heerd the
tom-tom bands.
I've seen enough of Egypt, 'n Algiers, 'nd ancient
Rome,
An' now I'm jist a-spilin' for somepin' right 'round
home.
Why, gosh all Friday! Take yer Turks an' all yer
foreign kit,
I want to see them Wolverines, an' I ain't seen 'em
yit ”