Shapes of Clay

by Ambrose Bierce

  I must bespeak the reader's charitable consideration in respect of the first stanza, the insuperable difficulties of which seem to have been purposely contrived in order to warn off trespassers at the very boundary of the alluring domain. I have got over the inhibition—somehow—but David and the Sibyl must try to forgive me if they find themselves represented merely by the names of those conspicuous personal qualities to which they probably owed, respectively, their powers of prophecy, as Samson's strength lay in his hair.

  DIES IRAE.

  Dies irae! dies ilia!

  Solvet saeclum in favilla

  Teste David cum Sibylla.

  Quantus tremor est futurus,

  Quando Judex est venturus.

  Cuncta stricte discussurus.

  Tuba mirum spargens sonum

  Per sepulchra regionem,

  Coget omnes ante thronum.

  Mors stupebit, et Natura,

  Quum resurget creatura

  Judicanti responsura.

  Liber scriptus proferetur,

  In quo totum continetur,

  Unde mundus judicetur.

  Judex ergo quum sedebit,

  Quicquid latet apparebit,

  Nil inultum remanebit.

  Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,

  Quem patronem rogaturus,

  Quum vix justus sit securus?

  Rex tremendae majestatis,

  Qui salvandos salvas gratis;

  Salva me, Fons pietatis

  Recordare, Jesu pie

  Quod sum causa tuae viae;

  Ne me perdas illa die.

  Quarens me sedisti lassus

  Redimisti crucem passus,

  Tantus labor non sit cassus.

  Juste Judex ultionis,

  Donum fac remissionis

  Ante diem rationis.

  Ingemisco tanquam reus,

  Culpa rubet vultus meus;

  Supplicanti parce, Deus.

  Qui Mariam absolvisti

  Et latronem exaudisti,

  Mihi quoque spem dedisti.

  Preces meae non sunt dignae,

  Sed tu bonus fac benigne

  Ne perenni cremer igne.

  Inter oves locum praesta.

  Et ab haedis me sequestra,

  Statuens in parte dextra.

  Confutatis maledictis,

  Flammis acribus addictis,

  Voca me cum benedictis.

  Oro supplex et acclinis,

  Cor contritum quasi cinis;

  Gere curam mei finis.

  Lacrymosa dies illa

  Qua resurgent et favilla,

  Judicandus homo reus

  Huic ergo parce, Deus!

  THE DAY OF WRATH.

  Day of Satan's painful duty!

  Earth shall vanish, hot and sooty;

  So says Virtue, so says Beauty.

  Ah! what terror shall be shaping

  When the Judge the truth's undraping!

  Cats from every bag escaping!

  Now the trumpet's invocation

  Calls the dead to condemnation;

  All receive an invitation.

  Death and Nature now are quaking,

  And the late lamented, waking,

  In their breezy shrouds are shaking.

  Lo! the Ledger's leaves are stirring,

  And the Clerk, to them referring,

  Makes it awkward for the erring.

  When the Judge appears in session,

  We shall all attend confession,

  Loudly preaching non-suppression.

  How shall I then make romances

  Mitigating circumstances?

  Even the just must take their chances.

  King whose majesty amazes.

  Save thou him who sings thy praises;

  Fountain, quench my private blazes.

  Pray remember, sacred Savior,

  Mine the playful hand that gave your

  Death-blow. Pardon such behavior.

  Seeking me fatigue assailed thee,

  Calvary's outlook naught availed thee:

  Now 't were cruel if I failed thee.

  Righteous judge and learned brother,

  Pray thy prejudices smother

  Ere we meet to try each other.

  Sighs of guilt my conscience gushes,

  And my face vermilion flushes;

  Spare me for my pretty blushes.

  Thief and harlot, when repenting,

  Thou forgav'st—be complimenting

  Me with sign of like relenting.

  If too bold is my petition

  I'll receive with due submission

  My dismissal—from perdition.

  When thy sheep thou hast selected

  From the goats, may I, respected,

  Stand amongst them undetected.

  When offenders are indicted,

  And with trial-flames ignited,

  Elsewhere I'll attend if cited.

  Ashen-hearted, prone, and prayerful,

  When of death I see the air full,

  Lest I perish, too, be careful.

  On that day of lamentation,

  When, to enjoy the conflagration.

  Men come forth, O, be not cruel.

  Spare me, Lord—make them thy fuel.

  ONE MOOD'S EXPRESSION.

  See, Lord, fanatics all arrayed

  For revolution!

  To foil their villainous crusade

  Unsheathe again the sacred blade

  Of persecution.

  What though through long disuse 't is grown

  A trifle rusty?

  'Gainst modern heresy, whose bone

  Is rotten, and the flesh fly-blown,

  It still is trusty.

  Of sterner stuff thine ancient foes,

  Unapprehensive,

  Sprang forth to meet thy biting blows;

  Our zealots chiefly to the nose

  Assume the offensive.

  Then wield the blade their necks to hack,

  Nor ever spare one.

  Thy crowns of martyrdom unpack,

  But see that every martyr lack

  The head to wear one.

  SOMETHING IN THE PAPERS.

  "What's in the paper?" Oh, it's dev'lish dull:

  There's nothing happening at all—a lull

  After the war-storm. Mr. Someone's wife

  Killed by her lover with, I think, a knife.

  A fire on Blank Street and some babies—one,

  Two, three or four, I don't remember, done

  To quite a delicate and lovely brown.

  A husband shot by woman of the town—

  The same old story. Shipwreck somewhere south.

  The crew, all saved—or lost. Uncommon drouth

  Makes hundreds homeless up the River Mud—

  Though, come to think, I guess it was a flood.

  'T is feared some bank will burst—or else it won't

  They always burst, I fancy—or they don't;

  Who cares a cent?—the banker pays his coin

  And takes his chances: bullet in the groin—

  But that's another item—suicide—

  Fool lost his money (serve him right) and died.

  Heigh-ho! there's noth—Jerusalem! what's this:

  Tom Jones has failed! My God, what an abyss

  Of ruin!—owes me seven hundred clear!

  Was ever such a damned disastrous year!

  IN THE BINNACLE.

  The Church possesses the unerring compass whose needle points directly and persistently to the star of the eternal law of God.

  Religious Weekly.

  The Church's compass, if you please,

  Has two or three (or more) degrees

  Of variation;

  And many a soul has gone to grief

  On this or that or t'other reef

  Through faith unreckoning or brief

  Miscalculation.

  Misguidance is of perils chief

  To navigation.

  The obsequious thing makes,
too, you'll mark,

  Obeisance through a little arc

  Of declination;

  For Satan, fearing witches, drew

  From Death's pale horse, one day, a shoe,

  And nailed it to his door to undo

  Their machination.

  Since then the needle dips to woo

  His habitation.

  HUMILITY.

  Great poets fire the world with fagots big

  That make a crackling racket,

  But I'm content with but a whispering twig

  To warm some single jacket.

  ONE PRESIDENT.

  "What are those, father?" "Statesmen, my child—

  Lacrymose, unparliamentary, wild."

  "What are they that way for, father?" "Last fall,

  'Our candidate's better,' they said, 'than all!'"

  "What did they say he was, father?" "A man

  Built on a straight incorruptible plan—

  Believing that none for an office would do

  Unless he were honest and capable too."

  "Poor gentlemen—so disappointed!" "Yes, lad,

  That is the feeling that's driving them mad;

  They're weeping and wailing and gnashing because

  They find that he's all that they said that he was."

  THE BRIDE.

  "You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse

  I made a second marriage in my house—

  Divorced old barren Reason from my bed

  And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse."

  So sang the Lord of Poets. In a gleam

  Of light that made her like an angel seem,

  The Daughter of the Vine said: "I myself

  Am Reason, and the Other was a Dream."

  STRAINED RELATIONS.

  Says England to Germany: "Africa's ours."

  Says Germany: "Ours, I opine."

  Says Africa: "Tell me, delectable Pow'rs,

  What is it that ought to be mine?"

  THE MAN BORN BLIND.

  A man born blind received his sight

  By a painful operation;

  And these are things he saw in the light

  Of an infant observation.

  He saw a merchant, good and wise.

  And greatly, too, respected,

  Who looked, to those imperfect eyes,

  Like a swindler undetected.

  He saw a patriot address

  A noisy public meeting.

  And said: "Why, that's a calf. I guess.

  That for the teat is bleating."

  A doctor stood beside a bed

  And shook his summit sadly.

  "O see that foul assassin!" said

  The man who saw so badly.

  He saw a lawyer pleading for

  A thief whom they'd been jailing,

  And said: "That's an accomplice, or

  My sight again is failing."

  Upon the Bench a Justice sat,

  With nothing to restrain him;

  "'Tis strange," said the observer, "that

  They ventured to unchain him."

  With theologic works supplied,

  He saw a solemn preacher;

  "A burglar with his kit," he cried,

  "To rob a fellow creature."

  A bluff old farmer next he saw

  Sell produce in a village,

  And said: "What, what! is there no law

  To punish men for pillage?"

  A dame, tall, fair and stately, passed,

  Who many charms united;

  He thanked his stars his lot was cast

  Where sepulchers were whited.

  He saw a soldier stiff and stern,

  "Full of strange oaths" and toddy;

  But was unable to discern

  A wound upon his body.

  Ten square leagues of rolling ground

  To one great man belonging,

  Looked like one little grassy mound

  With worms beneath it thronging.

  A palace's well-carven stones,

  Where Dives dwelt contented,

  Seemed built throughout of human bones

  With human blood cemented.

  He watched the yellow shining thread

  A silk-worm was a-spinning;

  "That creature's coining gold." he said,

  "To pay some girl for sinning."

  His eyes were so untrained and dim

  All politics, religions,

  Arts, sciences, appeared to him

  But modes of plucking pigeons.

  And so he drew his final breath,

  And thought he saw with sorrow

  Some persons weeping for his death

  Who'd be all smiles to-morrow.

  A NIGHTMARE.

  I dreamed that I was dead. The years went by:

  The world forgot that such a man as I

  Had ever lived and written: other names

  Were hailed with homage, in their turn to die.

  Out of my grave a giant beech upgrew.

  Its roots transpierced my body, through and through,

  My substance fed its growth. From many lands

  Men came in troops that giant tree to view.

  'T was sacred to my memory and fame—

  My monument. But Allen Forman came,

  Filled with the fervor of a new untruth,

  And carved upon the trunk his odious name!

  A WET SEASON.

  Horas non numero nisi serenas.

  The rain is fierce, it flogs the earth,

  And man's in danger.

  O that my mother at my birth

  Had borne a stranger!

  The flooded ground is all around.

  The depth uncommon.

  How blest I'd be if only she

  Had borne a salmon.

  If still denied the solar glow

  'T were bliss ecstatic

  To be amphibious—but O,

  To be aquatic!

  We're worms, men say, o' the dust, and they

  That faith are firm of.

  O, then, be just: show me some dust

  To be a worm of.

  The pines are chanting overhead

  A psalm uncheering.

  It's O, to have been for ages dead

  And hard of hearing!

  Restore, ye Pow'rs, the last bright hours

  The dial reckoned;

  'Twas in the time of Egypt's prime—

  Rameses II.

  THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS.

  Tut-tut! give back the flags—how can you care

  You veterans and heroes?

  Why should you at a kind intention swear

  Like twenty Neroes?

  Suppose the act was not so overwise—

  Suppose it was illegal—

  Is 't well on such a question to arise

  And pinch the Eagle?

  Nay, let's economize his breath to scold

  And terrify the alien

  Who tackles him, as Hercules of old

  The bird Stymphalian.

  Among the rebels when we made a breach

  Was it to get their banners?

  That was but incidental—'t was to teach

  Them better manners.

  They know the lesson well enough to-day;

  Now, let us try to show them

  That we 're not only stronger far than they.

  (How we did mow them!)

  But more magnanimous. You see, my lads,

  'T was an uncommon riot;

  The warlike tribes of Europe fight for "fads,"

  We fought for quiet.

  If we were victors, then we all must live

  With the same flag above us;

  'Twas all in vain unless we now forgive

  And make them love us.

  Let kings keep trophies to display above

  Their doors like any savage;

  The freeman's trophy is the foeman's love,

  Despite war's ravage.

  "Make tre
ason odious?" My friends, you'll find

  You can't, in right and reason,

  While "Washington" and "treason" are combined—

  "Hugo" and "treason."

  All human governments must take the chance

  And hazard of sedition.

  O, wretch! to pledge your manhood in advance

  To blind submission.

  It may be wrong, it may be right, to rise

  In warlike insurrection:

  The loyalty that fools so dearly prize

  May mean subjection.

  Be loyal to your country, yes—but how

  If tyrants hold dominion?

  The South believed they did; can't you allow

  For that opinion?

  He who will never rise though rulers plods

  His liberties despising

  How is he manlier than the sans culottes

  Who's always rising?

  Give back the foolish flags whose bearers fell

  Too valiant to forsake them.

  Is it presumptuous, this counsel? Well,

  I helped to take them.

  HAEC FABULA DOCET.

  A rat who'd gorged a box of bane

  And suffered an internal pain,

  Came from his hole to die (the label

  Required it if the rat were able)

  And found outside his habitat

  A limpid stream. Of bane and rat

  'T was all unconscious; in the sun

  It ran and prattled just for fun.

  Keen to allay his inward throes,

  The beast immersed his filthy nose