Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  Sit down while I spray you with vitriol now —

  Sing tooral iooral iooral iow.”

  Said Petrie: “That liquid I know won’t agree

  With my beauty, and then you’ll no longer love me;

  So spray and be “ — O, what a word he did say! —

  Sing tooral iooral iooral iay.

  She deluged his head and continued to pour

  Till his bonny blue eyes, like his love, were no more.

  It was seldom he got such a hearty shampoo —

  Sing tooral iooral iooral ioo.

  Then Petrie he rose and said: “Mrs. Roselle,

  I have an engagement and bid you farewell.”

  “You see,” she began to explain — but not he! —

  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iee.

  The Sheriff he came and he offered his arm,

  Saying, “Sorry I am for disturbin’ you, marm,

  But business is business.” Said she, “So they say —

  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iay.”

  The Judge on the bench he looked awfully stern;

  The District Attorney began to attorn;

  The witnesses lied and the lawyers — O my! —

  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iyi.

  The chap that defended her said: “It’s our claim

  That he loved us no longer and told us the same.

  What else than we did could we decently do? —

  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral ioo.”

  The District Attorney, sarcastic, replied:

  “We loved you no longer — that can’t be denied.

  Not having no eyes we may dote on you now —

  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iow.”

  The prisoner wept to entoken her fears;

  The sockets of Petrie were flooded with tears.

  O heaven-born Sympathy, bully for you! —

  Sing tooral, iooral, iooral ioo.

  Four jurors considered the prisoner mad,

  And four thought her victim uncommonly bad,

  And four that the acid was all in his eye —

  Sing rum tiddy iddity iddity hi.

  COUPLETS

  Intended for Inscription on a Sword Presented to Colonel

  Cutting of the National Guard of California.

  I am for Cutting. I’m a blade

  Designed for use at dress parade.

  My gleaming length, when I display

  Peace rules the land with gentle sway;

  But when the war-dogs bare their teeth

  Go seek me in the modest sheath.

  I am for Cutting. Not for me

  The task of setting nations free.

  Let soulless blades take human life,

  My softer metal shuns the strife.

  The annual review is mine,

  When gorgeous shopmen sweat and shine,

  And Biddy, tip-toe on the pave,

  Adores the cobble-trotting brave.

  I am for Cutting. ‘Tis not mine

  To hew amain the hostile line;

  Not mine all pitiless to spread

  The plain with tumuli of dead.

  My grander duty lies afar

  From haunts of the insane hussar,

  Where charging horse and struggling foot

  Are grimed alike with cannon-soot.

  When Loveliness and Valor meet

  Beneath the trees to dance, and eat,

  And sing, and much beside, behold

  My golden glories all unfold!

  There formidably are displayed

  The useful horrors of my blade

  In time of feast and dance and ballad,

  I am for cutting chicken salad.

  A RETORT

  As vicious women think all men are knaves,

  And shrew-bound gentlemen discourse of slaves;

  As reeling drunkards judge the world unsteady

  And idlers swear employers ne’er get ready —

  Thieves that the constable stole all they had,

  The mad that all except themselves are mad;

  So, in another’s clear escutcheon shown,

  Barnes rails at stains reflected from his own;

  Prates of “docility,” nor feels the dark

  Ring round his neck — the Ralston collar mark.

  Back, man, to studies interrupted once,

  Ere yet the rogue had merged into the dunce.

  Back, back to Yale! and, grown with years discreet,

  The course a virgin’s lust cut short, complete.

  Go drink again at the Pierian pool,

  And learn — at least to better play the fool.

  No longer scorn the draught, although the font,

  Unlike Pactolus, waters not Belmont.

  A VISION OF RESURRECTION

  I had a dream. The habitable earth —

  Its continents and islands, all were bare

  Of cities and of forests. Naught remained

  Of its old aspect, and I only knew

  (As men know things in dreams, unknowing how)

  That this was earth and that all men were dead.

  On every side I saw the barren land,

  Even to the distant sky’s inclosing blue,

  Thick-pitted all with graves; and all the graves

  Save one were open — not as newly dug,

  But rather as by some internal force

  Riven for egress. Tombs of stone were split

  And wide agape, and in their iron decay

  The massive mausoleums stood in halves.

  With mildewed linen all the ground was white.

  Discarded shrouds upon memorial stones

  Hung without motion in the soulless air.

  While greatly marveling how this should be

  I heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice,

  Low like an angel’s, delicately strong,

  And sweet as music.

  —”Spirit,” it said, “behold

  The burial place of universal Man!

  A million years have rolled away since here

  His sheeted multitudes (save only some

  Whose dark misdeeds required a separate

  And individual arraignment) rose

  To judgment at the trumpet’s summoning

  And passed into the sky for their award,

  Leaving behind these perishable things

  Which yet, preserved by miracle, endure

  Till all are up. Then they and all of earth,

  Rock-hearted mountain and storm-breasted sea,

  River and wilderness and sites of dead

  And vanished capitals of men, shall spring

  To flame, and naught shall be for evermore!

  When all are risen that wonder will occur.

  ‘Twas but ten centuries ago the last

  But one came forth — a soul so black with sin,

  Against whose name so many crimes were set

  That only now his trial is at end.

  But one remains.”

  Straight, as the voice was stilled —

  That single rounded mound cracked lengthliwise

  And one came forth in grave-clothes. For a space

  He stood and gazed about him with a smile

  Superior; then laying off his shroud

  Disclosed his two attenuated legs

  Which, like parentheses, bent outwardly

  As by the weight of saintliness above,

  And so sprang upward and was lost to view

  Noting his headstone overthrown, I read:

  “Sacred to memory of George K. Fitch,

  Deacon and Editor — a holy man

  Who fell asleep in Jesus, full of years

  And blessedness. The dead in Christ rise first.”

  MASTER OF THREE ARTS

  Your various talents, Goldenson, command

  Respect: you are a poet and can draw.

  It is a pity that your gifted hand

  Should ever have been raised against the law.

 
If you had drawn no pistol, but a picture,

  You would have saved your throttle from a stricture.

  About your poetry I’m not so sure:

  ’Tis certain we have much that’s quite as bad,

  Whose hardy writers have not to endure

  The hangman’s fondling. It is said they’re mad:

  Though lately Mr. Brooks (I mean the poet)

  Looked well, and if demented didn’t show it.

  Well, Goldenson, I am a poet, too —

  Taught by the muses how to smite the harp

  And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you

  And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp.

  But let me say, with no desire to taunt you,

  I never murder even the girls I want to.

  I hold it one of the poetic laws

  To sing of life, not take. I’ve ever shown

  A high regard for human life because

  I have such trouble to support my own.

  And you — well, you’ll find trouble soon in blowing

  Your private coal to keep it red and glowing.

  I fancy now I see you at the Gate

  Approach St. Peter, crawling on your belly,

  You cry: “Good sir, take pity on my state —

  Forgive the murderer of Mamie Kelly!”

  And Peter says: “O, that’s all right — but, mister,

  You scribbled rhymes. In Hell I’ll make you

  blister!”

  THERSITES

  So, in the Sunday papers you, Del Mar,

  Damn, all great Englishmen in English speech?

  I am no Englishman, but in my reach

  A rogue shall never rail where heroes are.

  You are the man, if I mistake you not,

  Who lately with a supplicating twitch

  Plucked at the pockets of the London rich

  And paid your share-engraver all you got.

  Because that you have greatly lied, because

  You libel nations, and because no hand

  Of officer is raised to bid you stand,

  And falsehood is unpunished of the laws,

  I stand here in a public place to mark

  With level finger where you part the crowd —

  I stand to name you and to cry aloud:

  “Behold mendacity’s great hierarch!”

  A SOCIETY LEADER

  “The Social World”! O what a world it is —

  Where full-grown men cut capers in the German,

  Cotillion, waltz, or what you will, and whizz

  And spin and hop and sprawl about like mermen!

  I wonder if our future Grant or Sherman,

  As these youths pass their time, is passing his —

  If eagles ever come from painted eggs,

  Or deeds of arms succeed to deeds of legs.

  I know they tell us about Waterloo:

  How, “foremost fighting,” fell the evening’s

  dancers.

  I don’t believe it: I regard it true

  That soldiers who are skillful in “the Lancers”

  Less often die of cannon than of cancers.

  Moreover, I am half-persuaded, too,

  That David when he danced before the Ark

  Had the reporter’s word to keep it dark.

  Ed. Greenway, you fatigue. Your hateful name

  Like maiden’s curls, is in the papers daily.

  You think it, doubtless, honorable fame,

  And contemplate the cheap distinction gaily,

  As does the monkey the blue-painted tail he

  Believes becoming to him. ‘Tis the same

  With men as other monkeys: all their souls

  Crave eminence on any kind of poles.

  But cynics (barking tribe!) are all agreed

  That monkeys upon poles performing capers

  Are not exalted, they are only “treed.”

  A glory that is kindled by the papers

  Is transient as the phosphorescent vapors

  That shine in graveyards and are seen, indeed,

  But while the bodies that supply the gas

  Are turning into weeds to feed an ass.

  One can but wonder sometimes how it feels

  To be an ass — a beast we beat condignly

  Because, like yours, his life is in his heels

  And he is prone to use them unbenignly.

  The ladies (bless them!) say you dance divinely.

  I like St. Vitus better, though, who deals

  His feet about him with a grace more just,

  And hops, not for he will, but for he must.

  Doubtless it gratifies you to observe

  Elbowy girls and adipose mamas

  All looking adoration as you swerve

  This way and that; but prosperous papas

  Laugh in their sleeves at you, and their ha-has,

  If heard, would somewhat agitate your nerve.

  And dames and maids who keep you on their

  shelves

  Don’t seem to want a closer tie themselves.

  Gods! what a life you live! — by day a slave

  To your exacting back and urgent belly;

  Intent to earn and vigilant to save —

  By night, attired so sightly and so smelly,

  With countenance as luminous as jelly,

  Bobbing and bowing! King of hearts and knave

  Of diamonds, I’d bet a silver brick

  If brains were trumps you’d never take a trick.

  EXPOSITOR VERITATIS

  I Slept, and, waking in the years to be,

  Heard voices, and approaching whence they came,

  Listened indifferently where a key

  Had lately been removed. An ancient dame

  Said to her daughter: “Go to yonder caddy

  And get some emery to scour your daddy.”

  And then I knew — some intuition said —

  That tombs were not and men had cleared their shelves

  Of urns; and the electro-plated dead

  Stood pedestaled as statues of themselves.

  With famous dead men all the public places

  Were thronged, and some in piles awaited bases.

  One mighty structure’s high façade alone

  Contained a single monumental niche,

  Where, central in that steep expanse of stone,

  Gleamed the familiar form of Thomas Fitch.

  A man cried: “Lo! Truth’s temple and its founder!”

  Then gravely added: “I’m her chief expounder.”

  TO COLONEL DAN. BURNS

  They say, my lord, that you’re a Warwick. Well,

  The title’s an absurd one, I believe:

  You make no kings, you have no kings to sell,

  Though really ‘twere easy to conceive

  You stuffing half-a-dozen up your sleeve.

  No, you’re no Warwick, skillful from the shell

  To hatch out sovereigns. On a mare’s nest, maybe,

  You’d incubate a little jackass baby.

  I fancy, too, that it is naught but stuff,

  This “power” that you’re said to be “behind

  The throne.” I’m sure ‘twere accurate enough

  To represent you simply as inclined

  To push poor Markham (ailing in his mind

  And body, which were never very tough)

  Round in an invalid’s wheeled chair. Such menial

  Employment to low natures is congenial.

  No, Dan, you’re an impostor every way:

  A human bubble, for “the earth,” you know,

  “Hath bubbles, as the water hath.” Some day

  Some careless hand will prick your film, and O,

  How utterly you’ll vanish! Daniel, throw

  (As fallen Woolsey might to Cromwell say)

  Your curst ambition to the pigs — though truly

  ‘Twould make them greater pigs, and more unruly.

  GEORGE A. KNI
GHT

  Attorney Knight, it happens so sometimes

  That lawyers, justifying cut-throats’ crimes

  For hire — calumniating, too, for gold,

  The dead, dumb victims cruelly unsouled —

  Speak, through the press, to a tribunal far

  More honorable than their Honors are, —

  A court that sits not with assenting smile

  While living rogues dead gentleman revile, —

  A court where scoundrel ethics of your trade

  Confuse no judgment and no cheating aid, —

  The Court of Honest Souls, where you in vain

  May plead your right to falsify for gain,

  Sternly reminded if a man engage

  To serve assassins for the liar’s wage,

  His mouth with vilifying falsehoods crammed,

  He’s twice detestable and doubly damned!

  Attorney Knight, defending Powell, you,

  To earn your fee, so energetic grew

  (So like a hound, the pride of all the pack,

  Clapping your nose upon the dead man’s track

  To run his faults to earth — at least proclaim

  At vacant holes the overtaken game)

  That men who marked you nourishing the tongue,

  And saw your arms so vigorously swung,

  All marveled how so light a breeze could stir

  So great a windmill to so great a whirr!

  Little they knew, or surely they had grinned,

  The mill was laboring to raise the wind.

  Ralph Smith a “shoulder-striker”! God, O hear

  This hardy man’s description of thy dear

  Dead child, the gentlest soul, save only One,

  E’er born in any land beneath the sun.

  All silent benefactions still he wrought:

  High deed and gracious speech and noble thought,

  Kept all thy law, and, seeking still the right,

  Upon his blameless breast received the light.

  “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints,” he cried

  Whose wrath was deep as his comparison wide —