Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)
Page 155
A deep, sepulchral smile; a wide
And open smile, which, at his side,
The churn to copy vainly tried;
A smile so like the dawn of doom
That all the field was palled in gloom,
And all the trees within a mile,
As tribute to that awful smile,
Made haste, with loyalty discreet,
To fling their shadows at his feet.
Then rose his battle-cry: “I’ll spread
That mammal on a slice of bread!”
To such a night the day had turned
That Taurus dimly was discerned.
He wore so meek and grave an air
It seemed as if, engaged in prayer
This thunderbolt incarnate had
No thought of anything that’s bad:
This concentrated earthquake stood
And gave his mind to being good.
Lightly and low he drew his breath —
This magazine of sudden death!
All this the thrifty Wilson’s glance
Took in, and, crying, “Now’s my chance!”
Upon the bull he sprang amain
To put him in his churn. Again
Rang out his battle-yell: “I’ll spread
That mammal on a slice of bread!”
Sing, Muse, that battle-royal — sing
The deeds that made the region ring,
The blows, the bellowing, the cries,
The dust that darkened all the skies,
The thunders of the contest, all —
Nay, none of these things did befall.
A yell there was — a rush — no more:
El Toro, tranquil as before,
Still stood there basking in the sun,
Nor of his legs had shifted one —
Stood there and conjured up his cud
And meekly munched it. Scenes of blood
Had little charm for him. His head
He merely nodded as he said:
“I’ve spread that butterman upon
A slice of Southern Oregon.”
GENESIS
God said, “Let there be Crime,” and the command
Brought Satan, leading Stoneman by the hand.
“Why, that’s Stupidity, not Crime,” said God —
“Bring what I ordered.” Satan with a nod
Replied, “This is one element — when I
The other — Opportunity — supply
In just equivalent, the two’ll affine
And in a chemical embrace combine
And Crime result — for Crime can only be
Stupiditate of Opportunity.”
So leaving Stoneman (not as yet endowed
With soul) in special session on a cloud,
Nick to his sooty laboratory went,
Returning soon with t’other element.
“Here’s Opportunity,” he said, and put
Pen, ink, and paper down at Stoneman’s foot.
He seized them — Heaven was filled with fires and thunders,
And Crime was added to Creation’s wonders!
LLEWELLEN POWELL
Villain, when the word is spoken,
And your chains at last are broken
When the gibbet’s chilling shade
Ceases darkly to enfold you,
And the angel who enrolled you
As a master of the trade
Of assassination sadly
Blots the record he has made,
And your name and title paints
In the calendar of saints;
When the devils, dancing madly
In the midmost Hell, are very
Multitudinously merry —
Then beware, beware, beware! —
Nemesis is everywhere!
You shall hear her at your back,
And, your hunted visage turning,
Fancy that her eyes are burning
Like a tiger’s on your track!
You shall hear her in the breeze
Whispering to summer trees.
You shall hear her calling, calling
To your spirit through the storm
When the giant billows form
And the splintered lightning, falling
Down the heights of Heaven, appalling,
Splendors all the tossing seas!
On your bed at night reclining,
Stars into your chamber shining
As they roll around the Pole,
None their purposes divining,
Shall appear to search your soul,
And to gild the mark of Cain
That burns into your tortured brain!
And the dead man’s eyes shall ever
Meet your own wherever you,
Desperate, shall turn you to,
And you shall escape them never!
By your heritage of guilt;
By the blood that you have spilt;
By the Law that you have broken;
By the terrible red token
That you bear upon your brow;
By the awful sentence spoken
And irrevocable vow
Which consigns you to a living
Death and to the unforgiving
Furies who avenge your crime
Through the periods of time;
By that dread eternal doom
Hinted in your future’s gloom,
As the flames infernal tell
Of their power and perfection
In their wavering reflection
On the battlements of Hell;
By the mercy you denied,
I condemn your guilty soul
In your body to abide,
Like a serpent in a hole!
THE SUNSET GUN.
Off Santa Cruz the western wave
Was crimson as with blood:
The sun was sinking to his grave
Beneath that angry flood.
Sir Walter Turnbull, brave and stout,
Then shouted, “Ho! lads; run —
The powder and the ball bring out
To fire the sunset gun.
“That punctual orb did ne’er omit
To keep, by land or sea,
Its every engagement; it
Shall never wait for me.”
Behold the black-mouthed cannon stand,
Ready with charge and prime,
The lanyard in the gunner’s hand.
Sir Walter waits the time.
The glowing orb sinks in the sea,
And clouds of steam aspire,
Then fade, and the horizon’s free.
Sir Walter thunders: “Fire!”
The gunner pulls — the lanyard parts
And not a sound ensues.
The beating of ten thousand hearts
Was heard at Santa Cruz!
Off Santa Cruz the western wave
Was crimson as with blood;
The sun, with visage stern and grave,
Came back from out the flood.
THE VIDUATE DAME
‘Tis the widow of Thomas Blythe,
And she goeth upon the spree,
And red are cheeks of the bystanders
For her acts are light and free.
In a seven-ounce costume
The widow of Thomas Blythe,
Y-perched high on the window ledge,
The difficult can-can tryeth.
Ten constables they essay
To bate the dame’s halloing.
With the widow of Thomas Blythe
Their hands are overflowing,
And they cry: “Call the National Guard
To quell this parlous muss —
For all of the widows of Thomas Blythe
Are upon the spree and us!”
O long shall the eerie tale be told
By that posse’s surviving tithe;
And with tears bedewed he’ll sing this rude
Ballàd of the widow of Thomas Blythe.
FOUR OF
A KIND
ROBERT F. MORROW
Dear man! although a stranger and a foe
To soft affection’s humanizing glow;
Although untaught how manly hearts may throb
With more desires than the desire to rob;
Although as void of tenderness as wit,
And owning nothing soft but Maurice Schmitt;
Although polluted, shunned and in disgrace,
You fill me with a passion to embrace!
Attentive to your look, your smile, your beck,
I watch and wait to fall upon your neck.
Lord of my love, and idol of my hope,
You are my Valentine, and I’m
A ROPE.
ALFRED CLARKE JR.
Illustrious son of an illustrious sire —
Entrusted with the duty to cry “Fire!”
And call the engines out, exert your power
With care. When, looking from your lofty tower,
You see a ruddy light on every wall,
Pause for a moment ere you sound the call:
It may be from a fire, it may be, too,
From good men’s blushes when they think of you.
JUDGE RUTLEDGE
Sultan of Stupids! with enough of brains
To go indoors in all uncommon rains,
But not enough to stay there when the storm
Is past. When all the world is dry and warm,
In irking comfort, lamentably gay,
Keeping the evil tenor of your way,
You walk abroad, sweet, beautiful and smug,
And Justice hears you with her wonted shrug,
Lifts her broad bandage half-an-inch and keeps
One eye upon you while the other weeps.
W.H.L. BARNES
Happy the man who sin’s proverbial wage
Receives on the instalment plan — in age.
For him the bulldog pistol’s honest bark
Has naught of terror in its blunt remark.
He looks with calmness on the gleaming steel —
If e’er it touched his heart he did not feel:
Superior hardness turned its point away,
Though urged by fond affinity to stay;
His bloodless veins ignored the futile stroke,
And moral mildew kept the cut in cloak.
Happy the man, I say, to whom the wage
Of sin has been commuted into age.
Yet not quite happy — hark, that horrid cry! —
His cruel mirror wounds him in the eye!
RECONCILIATION
Stanford and Huntington, so long at outs,
Kissed and made up. If you have any doubts
Dismiss them, for I saw them do it, man;
And then — why, then I clutched my purse and ran.
A VISION OF CLIMATE
I dreamed that I was poor and sick and sad,
Broken in hope and weary of my life;
My ventures all miscarrying — naught had
For all my labor in the heat and strife.
And in my heart some certain thoughts were rife
Of an unsummoned exit. As I lay
Considering my bitter state, I cried:
“Alas! that hither I did ever stray.
Better in some fair country to have died
Than live in such a land, where Fortune never
(Unless he be successful) crowns Endeavor.”
Then, even as I lamented, lo! there came
A troop of Presences — I knew not whence
Nor what they were: thought cannot rightly name
What’s known through spiritual evidence,
Reported not by gross material sense.
“Why come ye here?” I seemed to cry (though naught
My sleeping tongue did utter) to the first —
“What are ye? — with what woful message fraught?
Ye have a ghastly look, as ye had burst
Some sepulcher in memory. Weird creatures,
I’m sure I’d know you if ye had but features.”
Some subtle organ noted the reply
(Inaudible to ear of flesh the tone):
“The Finest Climate in the World am I,
From Siskiyou to San Diego known —
From the Sierra to the sea. The zone
Called semi-tropical I’ve pulled about
And placed it where it does most good, I trust.
I shake my never-failing bounty out
Alike upon the just and the unjust.”
“That’s very true,” said I, “but when ‘tis shaken
My share by the unjust is ever taken.”
“Permit me,” it resumed, “now to present
My eldest son, the Champagne Atmosphere,
And others to rebuke your discontent —
The Mammoth Squash, Strawberry All the Year,
The fair No Lightning — flashing only here —
The Wholesome Earthquake and Italian Sky,
With its Unstriking Sun; and last, not least,
The Compos Mentis Dog. Now, ingrate, try
To bring a better stomach to the feast:
When Nature makes a dance and pays the piper,
To be unhappy is to be a viper!”
“Why, yet,” said I, “with all your blessings fine
(And Heaven forbid that I should speak them ill)
I yet am poor and sick and sad. Ye shine
With more of splendor than of heat: for still,
Although my will is warm, my bones are chill.”
“Then warm you with enthusiasm’s blaze —
Fortune waits not on toil,” they cried; “O then
Join the wild chorus clamoring our praise —
Throw up your beaver and throw down you pen!”
“Begone!” I shouted. They bewent, a-smirking,
And I, awakening, fell straight a-working.
A MASS MEETING
It was a solemn rite as e’er
Was seen by mortal man.
The celebrants, the people there,
Were all Republican.
There Estee bent his grizzled head,
And General Dimond, too,
And one—’twas Reddick, some one said,
Though no one clearly knew.
I saw the priest, white-robed and tall
(Assistant, Father Stow) —
He was the pious man men call
Dan Burns of Mexico.
Ah, ‘twas a high and holy rite
As any one could swear.
“What does it mean?” I asked a wight
Who knelt apart in prayer.
“A mass for the repose,” he said,
”Of Colonel Markham’s” — —”What,
Is gallant Colonel Markham dead?
’Tis sad, ‘tis sad, God wot!”
“A mass” — repeated he, and rose
To go and kneel among
The worshipers—”for the repose
Of Colonel Markham’s tongue.”
FOR PRESIDENT, LELAND STANFORD
Mahomet Stanford, with covetous stare,
Gazed on a vision surpassingly fair:
Far on the desert’s remote extreme
A mountain of gold with a mellow gleam
Reared its high pinnacles into the sky,
The work of mirage to delude the eye.
Pixley Pasha, at the Prophet’s feet
Piously licking them, swearing them sweet,
Ventured, observing his master’s glance,
To beg that he order the mountain’s advance.
Mahomet Stanford exerted his will,
Commanding: “In Allah’s name, hither, hill!”
Never an inch the mountain came.
Mahomet Stanford, with face aflame,
Lifted his foot and kicked, alack!
Pixley Pasha on the end of the back.
Mollified thus and smiling free,
He said: “Since the mountain won’t come t
o me,
I’ll go to the mountain.” With infinite pains,
Camels in caravans, negroes in trains,
Warriors, workmen, women, and fools,
Food and water and mining tools
He gathered about him, a mighty array,
And the journey began at the close of day.
All night they traveled — at early dawn
Many a wearisome league had gone.
Morning broke fair with a golden sheen,
Mountain, alas, was nowhere seen!
Mahomet Stanford pounded his breast,
Pixley Pasha he thus addressed:
“Dog of mendacity, cheat and slave,
May jackasses sing o’er your grandfather’s grave!”
FOR MAYOR
O Abner Doble — whose “catarrhal name”
Budd of that ilk might envy—’tis a rough
Rude thing to say, but it is plain enough
Your name is to be sneezed at: its acclaim
Will “fill the speaking trump of future fame”
With an impeded utterance — a puff
Suggesting that a pinch or two of snuff
Would clear the tube and somewhat disinflame.
Nay, Abner Doble, you’ll not get from me
My voice and influence: I’ll cheer instead,
Some other man; for when my voice ascends a
Tall pinnacle of praise, and at high C
Sustains a chosen name, it shan’t be said
My influence is naught but influenza.
A CHEATING PREACHER
Munhall, to save my soul you bravely try,
Although, to save my soul, I can’t say why.
‘Tis naught to you, to me however much —
Why, bless it! you might save a million such
Yet lose your own; for still the “means of grace”
That you employ to turn us from the place
By the arch-enemy of souls frequented
Are those which to ensnare us he invented!
I do not say you utter falsehoods — I
Would scorn to give to ministers the lie: