Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  Why spring they not from out the plain?

  Where’s Luning, Blythe and Michael Reese,

  Magee, who ran the Golden Fleece?

  Where’s Asa Fisk? Jim Phelan, who

  Was thought to know a thing or two

  Of land which rose but never sank?

  Where’s Con O’Conor of the Bank,

  And all who consecrated lands

  Of old by laying on of hands?

  I ask of them because their worth

  Was known in all they wished — the earth.

  Brisk boomers once, alert and wise,

  Why don’t they rise, why don’t they rise?”

  The man replied: “Reburied long

  With others of the shrouded throng

  In San Mateo — carted there

  And dumped promiscuous, anywhere,

  In holes and trenches — all misfits —

  Mixed up with one another’s bits:

  One’s back-bone with another’s shin,

  A third one’s skull with a fourth one’s grin —

  Your eye was never, never fixed

  Upon a company so mixed!

  Go now among them there and blow:

  ‘Twill be as good as any show

  To see them, when they hear the tones,

  Compiling one another’s bones!

  But here ‘tis vain to sound and wait:

  Naught rises here but real estate.

  I own it all and shan’t disgorge.

  Don’t know me? I am Henry George.”

  ARBOR DAY

  Hasten, children, black and white —

  Celebrate the yearly rite.

  Every pupil plant a tree:

  It will grow some day to be

  Big and strong enough to bear

  A School Director hanging there.

  THE PIUTE

  Unbeautiful is the Piute!

  Howe’er bedecked with bravery,

  His person is unsavory —

  Of soap he’s destitute.

  He multiplies upon the earth

  In spite of all admonishing;

  All censure his astonishing

  And versatile unworth.

  Upon the Reservation wide

  We give for his inhabiting

  He goes a-jackass rabbiting

  To furnish his inside.

  The hopper singing in the grass

  He seizes with avidity:

  He loves its tart acidity,

  And gobbles all that pass.

  He penetrates the spider’s veil,

  Industriously pillages

  The toads’ defenseless villages,

  And shadows home the snail.

  He lightly runs to earth the quaint

  Red worm and, deftly troweling,

  He makes it with his boweling

  Familiarly acquaint.

  He tracks the pine-nut to its lair,

  Surrounds it with celerity,

  Regards it with asperity —

  Smiles, and it isn’t there!

  I wish he’d open up a grin

  Of adequate vivacity

  And carrying capacity

  To take his Agent in.

  FAME

  He held a book in his knotty paws,

  And its title grand read he:

  “The Chronicles of the Kings” it was,

  By the History Companee.

  “I’m a monarch,” he said

  (But a tear he shed)

  ”And my picter here you see.

  “Great and lasting is my renown,

  However the wits may flout —

  As wide almost as this blessed town”

  (But he winced as if with gout).

  “I paid ‘em like sin

  For to put me in,

  But it’s O, and O, to be out!”

  ONE OF THE REDEEMED

  Saint Peter, standing at the Gate, beheld

  A soul whose body Death had lately felled.

  A pleasant soul as ever was, he seemed:

  His step was joyous and his visage beamed.

  “Good morning, Peter.” There was just a touch

  Of foreign accent, but not overmuch.

  The Saint bent gravely, like a stately tree,

  And said: “You have the advantage, sir, of me.”

  “Rénan of Paris,” said the immortal part —

  “A master of the literary art.

  “I’m somewhat famous, too, I grieve to tell,

  As controversialist and infidel.”

  “That’s of no consequence,” the Saint replied,

  “Why, I myself my Master once denied.

  “No one up here cares anything for that.

  But is there nothing you were always at?

  “It seems to me you were accused one day

  Of something — what it was I can’t just say.”

  “Quite likely,” said the other; “but I swear

  My life was irreproachable and fair.”

  Just then a soul appeared upon the wall,

  Singing a hymn as loud as he could bawl.

  About his head a golden halo gleamed,

  As well befitted one of the redeemed.

  A harp he bore and vigorously thumbed,

  Strumming he sang, and, singing, ever strummed.

  His countenance, suffused with holy pride,

  Glowed like a pumpkin with a light inside.

  “Ah! that’s the chap,” said Peter, “who declares:

  ‘Rénan’s a rake and drunkard — smokes and swears.’

  “Yes, that’s the fellow — he’s a preacher — came

  From San Francisco. Mansfield was his name.”

  “Do you believe him?” said Rénan. “Great Scott!

  Believe? Believe the blackguard? Of course not!

  “Just walk right in and make yourself at home.

  And if he pecks at you I’ll cut his comb.

  “He’s only here because the Devil swore

  He wouldn’t have him, for the smile he wore.”

  Resting his eyes one moment on that proof

  Of saving grace, the Frenchman turned aloof,

  And stepping down from cloud to cloud, said he:

  “Thank you, monsieur, — I’ll see if he’ll have me.”

  A CRITIC

  [Apparently the Cleveland Leader is not a good judge of

  poetry. — The Morning Call.]

  That from you, neighbor! to whose vacant lot

  Each rhyming literary knacker scourges

  His cart-compelling Pegasus to trot,

  As folly, fame or famine smartly urges?

  Admonished by the stimulating goad,

  How gaily, lo! the spavined crow-bait prances —

  Its cart before it — eager to unload

  The dead-dog sentiments and swill-tub fancies.

  Gravely the sweating scavenger pulls out

  The tail-board of his curst imagination,

  Shoots all his rascal rubbish, and, no doubt,

  Thanks Fortune for so good a dumping-station.

  To improve your property, the vile cascade

  Your thrift invites — to make a higher level.

  In vain: with tons of garbage overlaid,

  Your baseless bog sinks slowly to the devil.

  “Rubbish may be shot here” — familiar sign!

  I seem to see it in your every column.

  You have your wishes, but if I had mine

  ’Twould to your editor mean something solemn.

  A QUESTION OF ELIGIBILITY

  It was a bruised and battered chap

  The victim of some dire mishap,

  Who sat upon a rock and spent

  His breath in this ungay lament:

  “Some wars — I’ve frequent heard of such —

  Has beat the everlastin’ Dutch!

  But never fight was fit by man

  To equal this which has began

  In our (I’m in it, if you please)

 
Academy of Sciences.

  For there is various gents belong

  To it which go persistent wrong,

  And loving the debates’ delight

  Calls one another names at sight.

  Their disposition, too, accords

  With fighting like they all was lords!

  Sech impulses should be withstood:

  ‘Tis scientific to be good.

  “‘Twas one of them, one night last week,

  Rose up his figure for to speak:

  ‘Please, Mr. Chair, I’m holding here

  A resolution which, I fear,

  Some ancient fossils that has bust

  Their cases and shook off their dust

  To sit as Members here will find

  Unpleasant, not to say unkind.’

  And then he read it every word,

  And silence fell on all which heard.

  That resolution, wild and strange,

  Proposed a fundamental change,

  Which was that idiots no more

  Could join us as they had before!

  “No sooner was he seated than

  The members rose up, to a man.

  Each chap was primed with a reply

  And tried to snatch the Chairman’s eye.

  They stomped and shook their fists in air,

  And, O, what words was uttered there!

  “The Chair was silent, but at last

  He hove up his proportions vast

  And stilled them tumults with a look

  By which the undauntedest was shook.

  He smiled sarcastical and said:

  ‘If Argus was the Chair, instead

  Of me, he’d lack enough of eyes

  Each orator to recognize!

  And since, denied a hearing, you

  Might maybe undertake to do

  Each other harm before you cease,

  I’ve took some steps to keep the peace:

  I’ve ordered out — alas, alas,

  That Science e’er to such a pass

  Should come! — I’ve ordered out — the gas!’

  “O if a tongue or pen of fire

  Was mine I could not tell entire

  What the ensuin’ actions was.

  When swollered up in darkness’ jaws

  We fit and fit and fit and fit,

  And everything we felt we hit!

  We gouged, we scratched and we pulled hair,

  And O, what words was uttered there!

  And when at last the day dawn came

  Three hundred Scientists was lame;

  Two hundred others couldn’t stand,

  They’d been so careless handled, and

  One thousand at the very least

  Was spread upon the floor deceased!

  ‘Twere easy to exaggerate,

  But lies is things I mortal hate.

  “Such, friends, is the disaster sad

  Which has befel the Cal. Acad.

  And now the question is of more

  Importance than it was before:

  Shall vacancies among us be

  To idiots threw open free?”

  FLEET STROTHER

  What! you were born, you animated doll,

  Within the shadow of the Capitol?

  ‘Twas always thought (and Bancroft so assures

  His trusting readers) it was reared in yours.

  CALIFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES

  THE FOOT-HILL RESORT

  Assembled in the parlor

  Of the place of last resort,

  The smiler and the snarler

  And the guests of every sort —

  The elocution chap

  With rhetoric on tap;

  The mimic and the funny dog;

  The social sponge; the money-hog;

  Vulgarian and dude;

  And the prude;

  The adiposing dame

  With pimply face aflame;

  The kitten-playful virgin —

  Vergin’ on to fifty years;

  The solemn-looking sturgeon

  Of a firm of auctioneers;

  The widower flirtatious;

  The widow all too gracious;

  The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath.

  One assassin picks the banjo, and another picks his teeth.

  AT ANCHOR

  The soft asphaltum in the sun;

  Betrays a tendency to run;

  Whereas the dog that takes his way

  Across its course concludes to stay.

  THE IN-COMING CLIMATE

  Now o’ nights the ocean breeze

  Makes the patient flinch,

  For that zephyr bears a sneeze

  In every cubic inch.

  Lo! the lively population

  Chorusing in sternutation

  A catarrhal acclamation!

  A LONG-FELT WANT

  Dimly apparent, through the gloom

  Of Market-street’s opaque simoom,

  A queue of people, parti-sexed,

  Awaiting the command of “Next!”

  A sidewalk booth, a dingy sign:

  “Teeth dusted nice — five cents a shine.”

  TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS

  Wide windy reaches of high stubble field;

  A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines;

  A wagon moving in a “cloud by day.”

  Two city sportsmen with a dove between,

  Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep —

  A solitary dove, the only dove

  In twenty counties, and it sick, or else

  It were not there. Two guns that fire as one,

  With thunder simultaneous and loud;

  Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone!

  And later, in the gloaming, comes a man —

  The worthy local coroner is he,

  Renowned all thereabout, and popular

  With many a remain. All tenderly

  Compiling in a game-bag the débris,

  He glides into the gloom and fades from sight.

  The dove, cured of its ailment by the shock,

  Has flown, meantime, on pinions strong and fleet,

  To die of age in some far foreign land.

  SLANDER

  FITCH:

  “All vices you’ve exhausted, friend;

  So all the papers say.”

  PICKERING:

  “Ah, what vile calumnies are penned! —

  ’Tis just the other way.”

  JAMES L. FLOOD

  As oft it happens in the youth of day

  That mists obscure the sun’s imperfect ray,

  Who, as he’s mounting to the dome’s extreme,

  Smites and dispels them with a steeper beam,

  So you the vapors that begirt your birth

  Consumed, and manifested all your worth.

  But still one early vice obstructs the light

  And sullies all the visible and bright

  Display of mind and character. You write.

  FOUR CANDIDATES FOR SENATOR

  To flatter your way to the goad of your hope,

  O plausible Mr. Perkins,

  You’ll need ten tons of the softest soap

  And butter a thousand firkins.

  The soap you could put to a better use

  In washing your hands of ambition

  Ere the butter’s used for cooking your goose

  To a beautiful brown condition.

  * * * * *

  “The Railroad can’t run Stanford.” That is so —

  The tail can’t curl the pig; but then, you know,

  Inside the vegetable-garden’s pale

  The pig will eat more cabbage than the tail.

  * * * * *

  When Sargent struts by all the lawmakers say:

  ”Right — left!” It is fair to infer

  The right will get left, nor polar the day

  When he makes that thing to occur.

  Not so, not so, ‘tis a joke, that cry —

&
nbsp; Foolish and dull and small:

  He so bores them for votes that they mean to imply

  He’s a drill-Sargent, that is all.

  * * * * *

  Gods! what a sight! Astride McClure’s broad back

  Estee jogs round the Senatorial track,

  The crowd all undecided, as they pass,

  Whether to cheer the man or cheer the ass.

  They stop: the man to lower his feet is seen

  And the tired beast, withdrawing from between,

  Mounts, as they start again, the biped’s neck,

  And scarce the crowd can say which one’s on deck.

  A GROWLER

  Judge Shafter, you’re an aged man, I know,

  And learned too, I doubt not, in the law;

  And a head white with many a winter’s snow

  (I wish, however that your heart would thaw)

  Claims reverence and honor; but the jaw

  That’s always wagging with a word malign,

  Nagging and scolding every one in sight

  As harshly as a jaybird in a pine,

  And with as little sense of wrong and right

  As animates that irritable creature,

  Is not a very venerable feature.

  You damn all witnesses, all jurors too

  (And swear at the attorneys, I suppose,

  But that’s commendable) “till all is blue”;

  And what it’s all about, the good Lord knows,

  Not you; but all the hotter, fiercer glows

  Your wrath for that — as dogs the louder howl

  With only moonshine to incite their rage,