Shapes of Clay

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by Ambrose Bierce


  "'T was found two centuries ago, o'ergrown

  With brush and ivy, all undoored, ungated;

  And in restoring it we found a stone

  Set here and there in the dilapidated

  And crumbling frieze, inscribed, in antiquated

  Big characters, with certain uncouth names,

  Which we conclude were borne of old by awful

  Rapscallions guilty of all sinful games—

  Vagrants engaged in purposes unlawful,

  And orators less sensible than jawful.

  So each ten years we add to the long row

  A name, the most unworthy that we know."

  "But why," I asked, "put me in?" He replied:

  "You look it"—and the judgment pained me greatly;

  Right gladly would I then and there have died,

  But that I'd risen from the grave so lately.

  But on examining that solemn, stately

  Old ruin I remarked: "My friend, you err—

  The truth of this is just what I expected.

  This building in its time made quite a stir.

  I lived (was famous, too) when 't was erected.

  The names here first inscribed were much respected.

  This is the Hall of Fame, or I'm a stork,

  And this goat pasture once was called New York."

  OMNES VANITAS.

  Alas for ambition's possessor!

  Alas for the famous and proud!

  The Isle of Manhattan's best dresser

  Is wearing a hand-me-down shroud.

  The world has forgotten his glory;

  The wagoner sings on his wain,

  And Chauncey Depew tells a story,

  And jackasses laugh in the lane.

  ASPIRATION.

  No man can truthfully say that he would not like to be President.

  William C. Whitney.

  Lo! the wild rabbit, happy in the pride

  Of qualities to meaner beasts denied,

  Surveys the ass with reverence and fear,

  Adoring his superior length of ear,

  And says: "No living creature, lean or fat,

  But wishes in his heart to be like That!"

  DEMOCRACY.

  Let slaves and subjects with unvaried psalms

  Before their sovereign execute salaams;

  The freeman scorns one idol to adore—

  Tom, Dick and Harry and himself are four.

  THE NEW "ULALUME."

  The skies they were ashen and sober,

  The leaves they were crisped and sere,—

  " " " withering " "

  It was night in the lonesome October

  Of my most immemorial year;

  It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,—

  " " down " " dark tarn " "

  In the misty mid region of Weir,—

  " " ghoul-haunted woodland " "

  CONSOLATION.

  Little's the good to sit and grieve

  Because the serpent tempted Eve.

  Better to wipe your eyes and take

  A club and go out and kill a snake.

  What do you gain by cursing Nick

  For playing her such a scurvy trick?

  Better go out and some villain find

  Who serves the devil, and beat him blind.

  But if you prefer, as I suspect,

  To philosophize, why, then, reflect:

  If the cunning rascal upon the limb

  Hadn't tempted her she'd have tempted him.

  FATE.

  Alas, alas, for the tourist's guide!—

  He turned from the beaten trail aside,

  Wandered bewildered, lay down and died.

  O grim is the Irony of Fate:

  It switches the man of low estate

  And loosens the dogs upon the great.

  It lights the fireman to roast the cook;

  The fisherman squirms upon the hook,

  And the flirt is slain with a tender look.

  The undertaker it overtakes;

  It saddles the cavalier, and makes

  The haughtiest butcher into steaks.

  Assist me, gods, to balk the decree!

  Nothing I'll do and nothing I'll be,

  In order that nothing be done to me.

  PHILOSOPHER BIMM.

  Republicans think Jonas Bimm

  A Democrat gone mad,

  And Democrats consider him

  Republican and bad.

  The Tough reviles him as a Dude

  And gives it him right hot;

  The Dude condemns his crassitude

  And calls him sans culottes.

  Derided as an Anglophile

  By Anglophobes, forsooth,

  As Anglophobe he feels, the while,

  The Anglophilic tooth.

  The Churchman calls him Atheist;

  The Atheists, rough-shod,

  Have ridden o'er him long and hissed

  "The wretch believes in God!"

  The Saints whom clergymen we call

  Would kill him if they could;

  The Sinners (scientists and all)

  Complain that he is good.

  All men deplore the difference

  Between themselves and him,

  And all devise expedients

  For paining Jonas Bimm.

  I too, with wild demoniac glee,

  Would put out both his eyes;

  For Mr. Bimm appears to me

  Insufferably wise!

  REMINDED.

  Beneath my window twilight made

  Familiar mysteries of shade.

  Faint voices from the darkening down

  Were calling vaguely to the town.

  Intent upon a low, far gleam

  That burned upon the world's extreme,

  I sat, with short reprieve from grief,

  And turned the volume, leaf by leaf,

  Wherein a hand, long dead, had wrought

  A million miracles of thought.

  My fingers carelessly unclung

  The lettered pages, and among

  Them wandered witless, nor divined

  The wealth in which, poor fools, they mined.

  The soul that should have led their quest

  Was dreaming in the level west,

  Where a tall tower, stark and still,

  Uplifted on a distant hill,

  Stood lone and passionless to claim

  Its guardian star's returning flame.

  I know not how my dream was broke,

  But suddenly my spirit woke

  Filled with a foolish fear to look

  Upon the hand that clove the book,

  Significantly pointing; next

  I bent attentive to the text,

  And read—and as I read grew old—

  The mindless words: "Poor Tom's a-cold!"

  Ah me! to what a subtle touch

  The brimming cup resigns its clutch

  Upon the wine. Dear God, is 't writ

  That hearts their overburden bear

  Of bitterness though thou permit

  The pranks of Chance, alurk in nooks,

  And striking coward blows from books,

  And dead hands reaching everywhere?

  SALVINI IN AMERICA.

  Come, gentlemen—your gold.

  Thanks: welcome to the show.

  To hear a story told

  In words you do not know.

  Now, great Salvini, rise

  And thunder through your tears,

  Aha! friends, let your eyes

  Interpret to your ears.

  Gods! 't is a goodly game.

  Observe his stride—how grand!

  When legs like his declaim

  Who can misunderstand?

  See how that arm goes round.

  It says, as plain as day:

  "I love," "The lost is found,"

  "Well met, sir," or, "Away!"

  And mark the drawing down

  Of brows. How accurate
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  The language of that frown:

  Pain, gentlemen—or hate.

  Those of the critic trade

  Swear it is all as clear

  As if his tongue were made

  To fit an English ear.

  Hear that Italian phrase!

  Greek to your sense, 't is true;

  But shrug, expression, gaze—

  Well, they are Grecian too.

  But it is Art! God wot

  Its tongue to all is known.

  Faith! he to whom 't were not

  Would better hold his own.

  Shakespeare says act and word

  Must match together true.

  From what you've seen and heard,

  How can you doubt they do?

  Enchanting drama! Mark

  The crowd "from pit to dome",

  One box alone is dark—

  The prompter stays at home.

  Stupendous artist! You

  Are lord of joy and woe:

  We thrill if you say "Boo,"

  And thrill if you say "Bo."

  ANOTHER WAY.

  I lay in silence, dead. A woman came

  And laid a rose upon my breast and said:

  "May God be merciful." She spoke my name,

  And added: "It is strange to think him dead.

  "He loved me well enough, but 't was his way

  To speak it lightly." Then, beneath her breath:

  "Besides"—I knew what further she would say,

  But then a footfall broke my dream of death.

  To-day the words are mine. I lay the rose

  Upon her breast, and speak her name and deem

  It strange indeed that she is dead. God knows

  I had more pleasure in the other dream.

  ART.

  For Gladstone's portrait five thousand pounds

  Were paid, 't is said, to Sir John Millais.

  I cannot help thinking that such fine pay

  Transcended reason's uttermost bounds.

  For it seems to me uncommonly queer

  That a painted British stateman's price

  Exceeds the established value thrice

  Of a living statesman over here.

  AN ENEMY TO LAW AND ORDER.

  A is defrauded of his land by B,

  Who's driven from the premises by C.

  D buys the place with coin of plundered E.

  "That A's an Anarchist!" says F to G.

  TO ONE ACROSS THE WAY.

  When at your window radiant you've stood

  I've sometimes thought—forgive me if I've erred—

  That some slight thought of me perhaps has stirred

  Your heart to beat less gently than it should.

  I know you beautiful; that you are good

  I hope—or fear—I cannot choose the word,

  Nor rightly suit it to the thought. I've heard

  Reason at love's dictation never could.

  Blindly to this dilemma so I grope,

  As one whose every pathway has a snare:

  If you are minded in the saintly fashion

  Of your pure face my passion's without hope;

  If not, alas! I equally despair,

  For what to me were hope without the passion?

  THE DEBTOR ABROAD.

  Grief for an absent lover, husband, friend,

  Is barely felt before it comes to end:

  A score of early consolations serve

  To modify its mouth's dejected curve.

  But woes of creditors when debtors flee

  Forever swell the separating sea.

  When standing on an alien shore you mark

  The steady course of some intrepid bark,

  How sweet to think a tear for you abides,

  Not all unuseful, in the wave she rides!—

  That sighs for you commingle in the gale

  Beneficently bellying her sail!

  FORESIGHT.

  An "actors' cemetery"! Sure

  The devil never tires

  Of planning places to procure

  The sticks to feed his fires.

  A FAIR DIVISION.

  Another Irish landlord gone to grass,

  Slain by the bullets of the tenant class!

  Pray, good agrarians, what wrong requires

  Such foul redress? Between you and the squires

  All Ireland's parted with an even hand—

  For you have all the ire, they all the land.

  GENESIS.

  God said: "Let there be Man," and from the clay

  Adam came forth and, thoughtful, walked away.

  The matrix whence his body was obtained,

  An empty, man-shaped cavity, remained

  All unregarded from that early time

  Till in a recent storm it filled with slime.

  Now Satan, envying the Master's power

  To make the meat himself could but devour,

  Strolled to the place and, standing by the pool,

  Exerted all his will to make a fool.

  A miracle!—from out that ancient hole

  Rose Morehouse, lacking nothing but a soul.

  "To give him that I've not the power divine,"

  Said Satan, sadly, "but I'll lend him mine."

  He breathed it into him, a vapor black,

  And to this day has never got it back.

  LIBERTY.

  "'Let there be Liberty!' God said, and, lo!

  The red skies all were luminous. The glow

  Struck first Columbia's kindling mountain peaks

  One hundred and eleven years ago!"

  So sang a patriot whom once I saw

  Descending Bunker's holy hill. With awe

  I noted that he shone with sacred light,

  Like Moses with the tables of the Law.

  One hundred and eleven years? O small

  And paltry period compared with all

  The tide of centuries that flowed and ebbed

  To etch Yosemite's divided wall!

  Ah, Liberty, they sing you always young

  Whose harps are in your adoration strung

  (Each swears you are his countrywoman, too,

  And speak no language but his mother tongue).

  And truly, lass, although with shout and horn

  Man has all-hailed you from creation's morn,

  I cannot think you old—I think, indeed,

  You are by twenty centuries unborn.

  1886.

  THE PASSING OF "BOSS" SHEPHERD.

  The sullen church-bell's intermittent moan,

  The dirge's melancholy monotone,

  The measured march, the drooping flags, attest

  A great man's progress to his place of rest.

  Along broad avenues himself decreed

  To serve his fellow men's disputed need—

  Past parks he raped away from robbers' thrift

  And gave to poverty, wherein to lift

  Its voice to curse the giver and the gift—

  Past noble structures that he reared for men

  To meet in and revile him, tongue and pen,

  Draws the long retinue of death to show

  The fit credentials of a proper woe.

  "Boss" Shepherd, you are dead. Your hand no more

  Throws largess to the mobs that ramp and roar

  For blood of benefactors who disdain

  Their purity of purpose to explain,

  Their righteous motive and their scorn of gain.

  Your period of dream—'twas but a breath—

  Is closed in the indifference of death.

  Sealed in your silences, to you alike

  If hands are lifted to applaud or strike.

  No more to your dull, inattentive ear

  Praise of to-day than curse of yesteryear.

  From the same lips the honied phrases fall

  That still are bitter from cascades of gall.

  We note the shame; you in your depth of dark

  The re
d-writ testimony cannot mark

  On every honest cheek; your senses all

  Locked, incommunicado, in your pall,

  Know not who sit and blush, who stand and bawl.

  "Seven Grecian cities claim great Homer dead,

  Through which the living Homer begged his

  bread."

  So sang, as if the thought had been his own,

  An unknown bard, improving on a known.

  "Neglected genius!"—that is sad indeed,

  But malice better would ignore than heed,

  And Shepherd's soul, we rightly may suspect,

  Prayed often for the mercy of neglect

  When hardly did he dare to leave his door

  Without a guard behind him and before

  To save him from the gentlemen that now

  In cheap and easy reparation bow

  Their corrigible heads above his corse

  To counterfeit a grief that's half remorse.

  The pageant passes and the exile sleeps,

  And well his tongue the solemn secret keeps

  Of the great peace he found afar, until,

  Death's writ of extradition to fulfill,

  They brought him, helpless, from that friendly zone

  To be a show and pastime in his own—

  A final opportunity to those

  Who fling with equal aim the stone and rose;

  That at the living till his soul is freed,

  This at the body to conceal the deed!

  Lone on his hill he's lying to await

  What added honors may befit his state—

  The monument, the statue, or the arch

  (Where knaves may come to weep and dupes to march)

  Builded by clowns to brutalize the scenes

  His genius beautified. To get the means,

  His newly good traducers all are dunned

  For contributions to the conscience fund.

  If each subscribe (and pay) one cent 'twill rear

  A structure taller than their tallest ear.

  Washington, May 4, 1903.

 

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