Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Delphi Classics)

by Ambrose Bierce

  To pay me for being so often defledged?”

  ”Accustomed” — this notion the plucker expressed

  As he ripped out a handful of down from her breast —

  ”To one kind of luxury, people soon yearn

  For others and ever for others in turn;

  And the man who to-night on your feathers will rest,

  His mutton or bacon or beef to digest,

  His hunger to-morrow will wish to assuage

  By dining on goose with a dressing of sage.”

  VANISHED AT COCK-CROW.

  “I’ve found the secret of your charm,” I said,

  Expounding with complacency my guess.

  Alas! the charm, even as I named it, fled,

  For all its secret was unconsciousness.

  THE UNPARDONABLE SIN.

  I reckon that ye never knew,

  That dandy slugger, Tom Carew,

  He had a touch as light an’ free

  As that of any honey-bee;

  But where it lit there wasn’t much

  To jestify another touch.

  O, what a Sunday-school it was

  To watch him puttin’ up his paws

  An’ roominate upon their heft —

  Particular his holy left!

  Tom was my style — that’s all I say;

  Some others may be equal gay.

  What’s come of him? Dunno, I’m sure —

  He’s dead — which make his fate obscure.

  I only started in to clear

  One vital p’int in his career,

  Which is to say — afore he died

  He soiled his erming mighty snide.

  Ye see he took to politics

  And learnt them statesmen-fellers’ tricks;

  Pulled wires, wore stovepipe hats, used scent,

  Just like he was the President;

  Went to the Legislator; spoke

  Right out agin the British yoke —

  But that was right. He let his hair

  Grow long to qualify for Mayor,

  An’ once or twice he poked his snoot

  In Congress like a low galoot!

  It had to come — no gent can hope

  To wrastle God agin the rope.

  Tom went from bad to wuss. Being dead,

  I s’pose it oughtn’t to be said,

  For sech inikities as flow

  From politics ain’t fit to know;

  But, if you think it’s actin’ white

  To tell it — Thomas throwed a fight!

  INDUSTRIAL DISCONTENT.

  As time rolled on the whole world came to be

  A desolation and a darksome curse;

  And some one said: “The changes that you see

  In the fair frame of things, from bad to worse,

  Are wrought by strikes. The sun withdrew his glimmer

  Because the moon assisted with her shimmer.

  “Then, when poor Luna, straining very hard,

  Doubled her light to serve a darkling world,

  He called her ‘scab,’ and meanly would retard

  Her rising: and at last the villain hurled

  A heavy beam which knocked her o’er the Lion

  Into the nebula of great O’Ryan.

  “The planets all had struck some time before,

  Demanding what they said were equal rights:

  Some pointing out that others had far more

  That a fair dividend of satellites.

  So all went out — though those the best provided,

  If they had dared, would rather have abided.

  “The stars struck too — I think it was because

  The comets had more liberty than they,

  And were not bound by any hampering laws,

  While they were fixed; and there are those who say

  The comets’ tresses nettled poor Altair,

  An aged orb that hasn’t any hair.

  “The earth’s the only one that isn’t in

  The movement — I suppose because she’s watched

  With horror and disgust how her fair skin

  Her pranking parasites have fouled and blotched

  With blood and grease in every labor riot,

  When seeing any purse or throat to fly at.”

  TEMPORA MUTANTUR.

  “The world is dull,” I cried in my despair:

  ”Its myths and fables are no longer fair.

  “Roll back thy centuries, O Father Time.

  To Greece transport me in her golden prime.

  “Give back the beautiful old Gods again —

  The sportive Nymphs, the Dryad’s jocund train,

  “Pan piping on his reeds, the Naiades,

  The Sirens singing by the sleepy seas.

  “Nay, show me but a Gorgon and I’ll dare

  To lift mine eyes to her peculiar hair

  “(The fatal horrors of her snaky pate,

  That stiffen men into a stony state)

  “And die — erecting, as my soul goes hence,

  A statue of myself, without expense.”

  Straight as I spoke I heard the voice of Fate:

  ”Look up, my lad, the Gorgon sisters wait.”

  Raising my eyes, I saw Medusa stand,

  Stheno, Euryale, on either hand.

  I gazed unpetrified and unappalled —

  The girls had aged and were entirely bald!

  CONTENTMENT.

  Sleep fell upon my senses and I dreamed

  Long years had circled since my life had fled.

  The world was different, and all things seemed

  Remote and strange, like noises to the dead.

  And one great Voice there was; and something said:

  ”Posterity is speaking — rightly deemed

  Infallible:” and so I gave attention,

  Hoping Posterity my name would mention.

  “Illustrious Spirit,” said the Voice, “appear!

  While we confirm eternally thy fame,

  Before our dread tribunal answer, here,

  Why do no statues celebrate thy name,

  No monuments thy services proclaim?

  Why did not thy contemporaries rear

  To thee some schoolhouse or memorial college?

  It looks almighty queer, you must acknowledge.”

  Up spake I hotly: “That is where you err!”

  But some one thundered in my ear: “You shan’t

  Be interrupting these proceedings, sir;

  The question was addressed to General Grant.”

  Some other things were spoken which I can’t

  Distinctly now recall, but I infer,

  By certain flushings of my cheeks and forehead,

  Posterity’s environment is torrid.

  Then heard I (this was in a dream, remark)

  Another Voice, clear, comfortable, strong,

  As Grant’s great shade, replying from the dark,

  Said in a tone that rang the earth along,

  And thrilled the senses of the Judges’ throng:

  ”I’d rather you would question why, in park

  And street, my monuments were not erected

  Than why they were.” Then, waking, I reflected.

  THE NEW ENOCH.

  Enoch Arden was an able

  Seaman; hear of his mishap —

  Not in wild mendacious fable,

  As ‘t was told by t’ other chap;

  For I hold it is a youthful

  Indiscretion to tell lies,

  And the writer that is truthful

  Has the reader that is wise.

  Enoch Arden, able seaman,

  On an isle was cast away,

  And before he was a freeman

  Time had touched him up with gray.

  Long he searched the fair horizon,

  Seated on a mountain top;

  Vessel ne’er he set his eyes on

  That would undertake to stop.

  Seeing that his sight was growing


  Dim and dimmer, day by day,

  Enoch said he must be going.

  So he rose and went away —

  Went away and so continued

  Till he lost his lonely isle:

  Mr. Arden was so sinewed

  He could row for many a mile.

  Compass he had not, nor sextant,

  To direct him o’er the sea:

  Ere ‘t was known that he was extant,

  At his widow’s home was he.

  When he saw the hills and hollows

  And the streets he could but know,

  He gave utterance as follows

  To the sentiments below:

  “Blast my tarry toplights! (shiver,

  Too, my timbers!) but, I say,

  W’at a larruk to diskiver,

  I have lost me blessid way!

  “W’at, alas, would be my bloomin’

  Fate if Philip now I see,

  Which I lammed? — or my old ‘oman,

  Which has frequent basted me?”

  Scenes of childhood swam around him

  At the thought of such a lot:

  In a swoon his Annie found him

  And conveyed him to her cot.

  ‘T was the very house, the garden,

  Where their honeymoon was passed:

  ’T was the place where Mrs. Arden

  Would have mourned him to the last.

  Ah, what grief she’d known without him!

  Now what tears of joy she shed!

  Enoch Arden looked about him:

  ”Shanghaied!” — that was all he said.

  DISAVOWAL.

  Two bodies are lying in Phoenix Park,

  Grim and bloody and stiff and stark,

  And a Land League man with averted eye

  Crosses himself as he hurries by.

  And he says to his conscience under his breath:

  ”I have had no hand in this deed of death!”

  A Fenian, making a circuit wide

  And passing them by on the other side,

  Shudders and crosses himself and cries:

  ”Who says that I did it, he lies, he lies!”

  Gingerly stepping across the gore,

  Pat Satan comes after the two before,

  Makes, in a solemnly comical way,

  The sign of the cross and is heard to say:

  ”O dear, what a terrible sight to see,

  For babes like them and a saint like me!”

  1882.

  AN AVERAGE.

  I ne’er could be entirely fond

  Of any maiden who’s a blonde,

  And no brunette that e’er I saw

  Had charms my heart’s whole

  warmth to draw.

  Yet sure no girl was ever made

  Just half of light and half of shade.

  And so, this happy mean to get,

  I love a blonde and a brunette.

  WOMAN.

  Study good women and ignore the rest,

  For he best knows the sex who knows the best.

  INCURABLE.

  From pride, joy, hate, greed, melancholy —

  From any kind of vice, or folly,

  Bias, propensity or passion

  That is in prevalence and fashion,

  Save one, the sufferer or lover

  May, by the grace of God, recover:

  Alone that spiritual tetter,

  The zeal to make creation better,

  Glows still immedicably warmer.

  Who knows of a reformed reformer?

  THE PUN.

  Hail, peerless Pun! thou last and best,

  Most rare and excellent bequest

  Of dying idiot to the wit

  He died of, rat-like, in a pit!

  Thyself disguised, in many a way

  Thou let’st thy sudden splendor play,

  Adorning all where’er it turns,

  As the revealing bull’s-eye burns,

  Of the dim thief, and plays its trick

  Upon the lock he means to pick.

  Yet sometimes, too, thou dost appear

  As boldly as a brigadier

  Tricked out with marks and signs, all o’er,

  Of rank, brigade, division, corps,

  To show by every means he can

  An officer is not a man;

  Or naked, with a lordly swagger,

  Proud as a cur without a wagger,

  Who says: “See simple worth prevail —

  All dog, sir — not a bit of tail!”

  ‘T is then men give thee loudest welcome,

  As if thou wert a soul from Hell come.

  O obvious Pun! thou hast the grace

  Of skeleton clock without a case —

  With all its boweling displayed,

  And all its organs on parade.

  Dear Pun, you’re common ground of bliss,

  Where Punch and I can meet and kiss;

  Than thee my wit can stoop no low’r —

  No higher his does ever soar.

  A PARTISAN’S PROTEST.

  O statesmen, what would you be at,

  With torches, flags and bands?

  You make me first throw up my hat,

  And then my hands.

  TO NANINE.

  Dear, if I never saw your face again;

  If all the music of your voice were mute

  As that of a forlorn and broken lute;

  If only in my dreams I might attain

  The benediction of your touch, how vain

  Were Faith to justify the old pursuit

  Of happiness, or Reason to confute

  The pessimist philosophy of pain.

  Yet Love not altogether is unwise,

  For still the wind would murmur in the corn,

  And still the sun would splendor all the mere;

  And I — I could not, dearest, choose but hear

  Your voice upon the breeze and see your eyes

  Shine in the glory of the summer morn.

  VICE VERSA.

  Down in the state of Maine, the story goes,

  A woman, to secure a lapsing pension,

  Married a soldier — though the good Lord knows

  That very common act scarce calls for mention.

  What makes it worthy to be writ and read —

  The man she married had been nine hours dead!

  Now, marrying a corpse is not an act

  Familiar to our daily observation,

  And so I crave her pardon if the fact

  Suggests this interesting speculation:

  Should some mischance restore the man to life

  Would she be then a widow, or a wife?

  Let casuists contest the point; I’m not

  Disposed to grapple with so great a matter.

  ’T would tie my thinker in a double knot

  And drive me staring mad as any hatter —

  Though I submit that hatters are, in fact,

  Sane, and all other human beings cracked.

  Small thought have I of Destiny or Chance;

  Luck seems to me the same thing as Intention;

  In metaphysics I could ne’er advance,

  And think it of the Devil’s own invention.

  Enough of joy to know though when I wed

  I must be married, yet I may be dead.

  A BLACK-LIST.

  “Resolved that we will post,” the tradesmen say,

  ”All names of debtors who do never pay.”

  ”Whose shall be first?” inquires the ready scribe —

  ”Who are the chiefs of the marauding tribe?”

  Lo! high Parnassus, lifting from the plain,

  Upon his hoary peak, a noble fane!

  Within that temple all the names are scrolled

  Of village bards upon a slab of gold;

  To that bad eminence, my friend, aspire,

  And copy thou the Roll of Fame, entire.

  Yet not to total shame those names devote,

  But add in mercy this explaini
ng note:

  ”These cheat because the law makes theft a crime,

  And they obey all laws but laws of rhyme.”

  A BEQUEST TO MUSIC.

  “Let music flourish!” So he said and died.

  Hark! ere he’s gone the minstrelsy begins:

  The symphonies ascend, a swelling tide,

  Melodious thunders fill the welkin wide —

  The grand old lawyers, chinning on their chins!

  AUTHORITY.

  “Authority, authority!” they shout

  Whose minds, not large enough to hold a doubt,

  Some chance opinion ever entertain,

  By dogma billeted upon their brain.

  ”Ha!” they exclaim with choreatic glee,

  ”Here’s Dabster if you won’t give in to me —

  Dabster, sir, Dabster, to whom all men look

  With reverence!” The fellow wrote a book.

  It matters not that many another wight

  Has thought more deeply, could more wisely write

  On t’ other side — that you yourself possess

  Knowledge where Dabster did but faintly guess.

  God help you if ambitious to persuade

  The fools who take opinion ready-made

  And “recognize authorities.” Be sure

  No tittle of their folly they’ll abjure

  For all that you can say. But write it down,

  Publish and die and get a great renown —

  Faith! how they’ll snap it up, misread, misquote,

  Swear that they had a hand in all you wrote,

  And ride your fame like monkeys on a goat!

  THE PSORIAD.