Benjamin Franklin King

Rating: 4.33
Rating: 4.33

Benjamin Franklin King Poems

1 Nothing to do but work,
2 Nothing to eat but food,
3 Nothing to wear but clothes
4 To keep one from going nude.
...

1 If I should die to-night
2 And you should come to my cold corpse and say,
3 Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay --
4 If I should die to-night,
...

They stood on the bridge at midnight,
In a park not far from town;
They stood on the bridge at midnight
Because they didn't sit down.
...

1 Down from the hills and over the snow
2 Swift as a meteor's flash we go,
3 Toboggan! Toboggan! Toboggan!
4 Down from the hills with our senses lost,
...

1 De Injun summah's comin',
2 De bees is all froo hummin',
3 De watah-mellon thumbin'
4 Has passed long time ago.
...

Benjamin Franklin King Biography

King was born at St. Joseph, Michigan, March 17, 1857, and died while on a speaking tour at Bowling Green, Kentucky, April 7, 1894. He was married November 27, 1883 to Aseneth Belle Latham, of St. Joseph, Michigan, and the couple had two children, Bennett Latham King and Spencer P. King, aged nine and five, respectively, at the time of his death. King billed himself as "Ben King, the Sweet Singer of St. Joe". He first came to prominence for a concert given during the World's Columbian Exposition. Introduced to the Press Club of Chicago, he was quickly picked up by Opie Read, who invited King to tour with him, reading his poetry with piano accompaniment. According to a short biography by Opie Read, as a child he was reputed a piano prodigy; in adult life he was by many deemed a failure for his lack of business instinct. But as a poet, a gentle satirist and a humorist of the highest order, he achieved notability in his short life for a series of newspaper published poems. He appears to have been a favorite of the Press Club of Chicago, and that organisation published a posthumous collection of his works, Ben King's verse, in 1894, comparing him with Thomas Hood, a then famous English humorist and poet. In the next quarter century, the book reputedly outsold any other single volume of verses in Michigan. He is buried in the St. Joseph City Cemetery. A monument erected in Lake Bluff Park, Berrien County, Michigan in 1924 features a bronze bust of King created by Chicago sculptor Leonard Crunelle. On the granite monument base are lines from his poem "The River St. Joe": Where the bumblebee sips and the clover's in bloom, and the zephyr's come laden with peachblow perfume. Where the thistle-down pauses in search of the rose and the myrtle and woodbine and wild ivy grows; Oh, give me the spot that I once used to know by the side of the placid old River St. Joe!)

The Best Poem Of Benjamin Franklin King

The Pessimist

1 Nothing to do but work,
2 Nothing to eat but food,
3 Nothing to wear but clothes
4 To keep one from going nude.

5 Nothing to breathe but air
6 Quick as a flash 't is gone;
7 Nowhere to fall but off,
8 Nowhere to stand but on.

9 Nothing to comb but hair,
10 Nowhere to sleep but in bed,
11 Nothing to weep but tears,
12 Nothing to bury but dead.

13 Nothing to sing but songs,
14 Ah, well, alas! alack!
15 Nowhere to go but out,
16 Nowhere to come but back.

17 Nothing to see but sights,
18 Nothing to quench but thirst,
19 Nothing to have but what we've got;
20 Thus thro' life we are cursed.

21 Nothing to strike but a gait;
22 Everything moves that goes.
23 Nothing at all but common sense
24 Can ever withstand these woes.

Benjamin Franklin King Comments

Benjamin Franklin King Quotes

The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken to what is said and to answer to the purpose.

At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.

Opportunity is the great bawd.

A little neglect may breed mischief ... for want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.

Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.

No nation was ever ruined by trade.

Ça ira. (It will go its own way.)

That which resembles most living one's life over again, seems to be to recall all the circumstances of it; and, to render this remembrance more durable, to record them in writing.

Those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory, sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them.

A benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance.

I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.

I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, make the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy. At least you will, by such conduct, stand the best chance for such consequences.

We are more thoroughly an enlightened people, with respect to our political interests, than perhaps any other under heaven. Every man among us reads, and is so easy in his circumstances as to have leisure for conversations of improvement and for acquiring information.

Furnished as all Europe now is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence.

Benjamin Franklin King Popularity

Benjamin Franklin King Popularity

Close
Error Success