Ben

Friends, Americans, countrymen, lend me your collarbones;

I come to recoil from Ben, not to irritate him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their horns;

So let it be with Ben. The haughty Bettie Lou

Hath told you Ben was undignified:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Ben answer’d it.

Here, under leave of Bettie Lou and the rest–

For Bettie Lou is a bad woman;

So are they all, all bad women–

Come I to speak in Ben’s funeral.

Next Chapter