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Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)

Page 186

by Bierce, Ambrose


  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.

  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.

  A LACKING FACTOR

  “You acted unwisely,” I cried, “as you see

  By the outcome.” He calmly eyed me:

  “When choosing the course of my action,” said he,

  “I had not the outcome to guide me.”

  THE POLITICIAN

  Let patriots manipulate

  The tiller of the Ship of State;

  Be mine the humble, useful toil

  To work the tiller of the soil.

  ELIHU ROOT

  Stoop to a dirty trick or low misdeed?

  What, bend him from his moral skies to it?

  No, no, not he! To serve his nature’s need

  He may upon occasion rise to it.

  AN ERROR

  “I never have been able to determine

  Just how it is that the judicial ermine

  Is safely guarded from predacious vermin.”

  “It is not so, my friend; though in a garret

  ‘Tis kept in camphor, and you often air it,

  The vermin will get into it and wear it.”

  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.

  WOMAN

  Study good women and ignore the rest,

  For he best knows the sex who knows the best.

  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.

  A BEQUEST TO MUSIC

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

  Hark! when 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!

  ONEIROMANCY

  I fell asleep and dreamed that I

  Was flung, like Vulcan, from the sky;

  Like him, was lamed — another part:

  His leg was crippled, and my heart.

  I woke in time to see my love

  Conceal a letter in her glove.

  JULY FOURTH

  God said: “Let there be noise.” The dawning fire

  Of Independence gilded every spire.

  A PARADOX

  “If life were not worth living,” said the preacher,

  “‘Twould have in suicide one pleasant feature.”

  “An error,” said the pessimist, “you’re making:

  What’s not worth having cannot be worth taking.”

  REEDIFIED

  Lord of the Tempest, pray refrain

  From leveling this church again.

  Now in its doom, since so you’ve willed it,

  We acquiesce: but you’ll rebuild it.

  A BULLETIN

  “Lothario is very low,”

  So all the doctors tell.

  Nay,,nay, not so, — he will be, though,

  If ever he get well.

  AN INSCRIPTION

  For a Statue of Napoleon

  A conqueror as provident as brave,

  He robbed the cradle to supply the grave.

  His reign laid quantities of human dust:

  He fell upon the just and the unjust.

  AN ERRONEOUS ASSUMPTION

  Good for he’s old? Ah, Youth, you do not dream

  How sweet the roses in the autumn seem!

  A CONSTRUCTOR

  I saw the devil. He was working free —

  A customs-house he builded by the sea.

  “Why do you this?” The devil raised his head:

  “Of churches I have built enough,” he said.

  GOD COMPLIES

  “By prayer see Megapomp restored,”

  Shouts Martext, pious creature.

  Yes, God by supplication bored

  From every droning preacher,

  Exclaimed: “So be it, tiresome crew;

  But I’ve a crow to pick with you.”

  IN ARTICULO MORTIS

  The paper presented he solemnly signed,

  Gasping — perhaps ‘twas a jest he meant:

  “This of a sound and disposing mind

  Is the last ill will and contestament.”

  THE DISCOVERERS

  My! how my fame rings out in ever zone —

  A thousand critics shouting: “He’s unknown!”

  UNEXPOUNDED

  On Evidence, on Deeds, on Bills,

  On Copyhold, on Loans, on Wills,

  Lawyers great books indite.

  The creaking of their busy quills

  I never heard on Right.

  THE EASTERN QUESTION

  Looking across the line, the Grecian said:

  “This border I will stain a Turkey red.”

  The Moslem smiled serenely and replied:

  “No Greek has ever for his country dyed.”

  While thus each patriot guarded his frontier

  The Powers stole the country in his rear.

  TWO TYPES

  Courageous fool! — the peril’s strength unknown.

  Courageous man! — so conscious of your own.

  TO A CRITIC OF TENNYSON

  Affronting fool, subdue your transient light;

  When Wisdom’s dull dares Folly to be bright?

  If Genius stumble in the path to fame

  ‘Tis decency in dunces to go lame.

  COOPERATION

  No more the swindler singly seeks his prey

  To hunt in couples is the modern way —

  A rascal from the public to purloin,

  An honest man to hide away the coin.

  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.

  STRAINED RELATIONS

  Says England to Germany: “Africa’s ours.”

  Says Germany: “Ours, I opine.”

  Says Africa: “Tell me, delectable Powers,

  What is it that ought to be mine?”

  EXONERATION

  When men at candidacy don’t connive,

  From that suspicion if their friends would free ‘em

  The teeth and nails with which they do not strive

  Should be exhibited in a museum.

  AFTER PORTSMOUTH

  Begirt with bombs that fall and flames that rise,

  The Tsar, bewildered, stares. “Alas,” he cries,

  “Life withholds joy and death denies release!

  And Roosevelt would have me think this peace.”

  A VOICE FROM PEKIN

  “‘ Empress of China ‘! I nor rule nor reign:

  I wear the purple but to hide the chain —

  Free only to hold back the open door

  For foreign devils drunk upon my floor.”

  A PIOUS RITE

  On Maunday Thursday, as was good and meet,

  The Emperor of Austria washed the feet
/>   Of twelve poor men to show how humble he

  For twenty minutes of the year could be.

  O Thou, who trackest tenants of the throne

  Through moral quagmires, make them wash their own.

  JUSTICE

  She jilted me. I madly cried:

  “The grave at least can hold her!”

  Reflecting then that if she died

  ‘Twould stop her growing older,

  I pitilessly sheathed the knife

  And sternly sentenced her to life!

  AT THE BEACH

  List, England, to our words of scorn

  For noblemen to title born!

  Yet be thine eyes awhile depressed,

  For one has turned his prow to-west,

  And we, to catch his landing-line,

  Are pickling all our shins in brine.

  AN INFRACTION OF THE RULES

  A duel in France, and the victor pursued

  By the dogs of the law, by the multitude,

  By society’s fierce ill-will!

  O what is the matter? The man was so rude,

  That he made an attempt to kill!

  CONVERSELY

  There’s grief in Belgrade, for no crown, it is said,

  Is found for King Peter in all of the town.

  How sad that he’s lacking a crown for his head!

  How sweet were he lacking a head for his crown!

  A WARNING

  Cried Age to Youth: “Abate your speed!

  The distance hither’s brief indeed.”

  But Youth pressed on without delay —

  The shout had reached but half the way.

  PSYCHOGRAPHS

  Says Gerald Massey: “When I write, a band

  Of souls of the departed guides my hand.”

  How strange that poems cumbering our shelves,

  Penned by immortal parts, have none themselves!

  FOR WOUNDS

  O bear me, gods, to some enchanted isle

  Where woman’s tears can antidote her smile.

  A LITERARY METHOD

  His “Hoosier poems” Riley says he writes

  Upon an empty stomach. Heavenly Powers,

  Feed him throat-full; for what the wretch indites

  Upon his empty stomach empties ours!

  BACK TO NATURE

  Nathaniel, Julian, Hildegardy!

  Sure the stock is far from hardy,

  And the name once heard with awe

  Now provokes the loud guffaw —

  “Hawthorne” in the memory dear,

  “Haw-haw-hawthorne” in the ear!

  RUDOLPH BLOCK

  What parallel, neighbor, be pleased to expound

  ‘Twixt Belgium’s king and you may be found?

  Why this: if the cable dispatches are true

  He lies on his deathbed. So would you.

  BOYCOTT

  “This thing’s a bomb,” said Gompers, lighting

  The fuse; “‘twill blow them all a kiting!”

  Well, now ‘tis shattered all to pieces,

  And Gompers but a spot of grease is.

  TO HER

  O Sinner A, to me unknown

  Be such a conscience as your own!

  To ease it, you to Sinner B

  Confess the sins of Sinner C.

  CREATION

  God dreamed — the suns sprang flaming into place,

  And sailing worlds with many a venturous race!

  He woke — His smile alone illumined space.

  REBUKE

  When Admonition’s hand essays

  Our greed to curse,

  Its lifted finger oft displays

  Our missing purse.

  PRAYER

  Fear not in any tongue to call

  Upon the Lord — He’s skilled in all.

  But if He answereth my plea

  He speaketh one unknown to me.

  THE LONG FEAR

  Noting the hangman’s frown and the law’s righteous rage,

  Our murderers live in terror till they die of age.

  AN INSPIRED PERFORMANCE

  The Devil troubled a pool of mud,

  And Vierick from out the smother

  Arose and to prove his royal blood

  Defamed his peasant mother.

  Dear Devil, his poems — we’ll suffer all those,

  But do not again provoke him to prose.

  The Poems

  Bierce’s former residence in the Logan Circle neighbourhood of Washington, D.C.

  LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  THE KEY NOTE

  CAIN

  AN OBITUARIAN

  A COMMUTED SENTENCE

  A LIFTED FINGER

  TWO STATESMEN

  MATTER FOR GRATITUDE

  A MAN

  Y’E FOE TO CATHAYE

  SAMUEL SHORTRIDGE

  SURPRISED

  POSTERITY’S AWARD

  AN ART CRITIC

  THE SPIRIT OF A SPONGE

  ORNITHANTHROPOS

  TO E.S. SALOMON

  DENNIS KEARNEY

  FINIS ÆTERNITATIS

  THE VETERAN

  AN EXHIBIT

  THE TRANSMIGRATIONS OF A SOUL

  AN ACTOR

  FAMINE’S REALM

  THE MACKAIAD

  A SONG IN PRAISE

  A POET’S FATHER

  A COWARD

  TO MY LIARS

  PHIL CRIMMINS

  CODEX HONORIS

  TO W.H.L.B.

  EMANCIPATION

  JOHNDONKEY

  HELL

  BY FALSE PRETENSES

  LUCIFER OF THE TORCH

  THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME

  A RAILROAD LACKEY

  THE LEGATEE

  DIED OF A ROSE

  A LITERARY HANGMAN

  AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR

  A CONTROVERSIALIST

  MENDAX

  THE RETROSPECTIVE BIRD

  THE OAKLAND DOG

  THE UNFALLEN BRAVE

  A CELEBRATED CASE

  COUPLETS

  A RETORT

  A VISION OF RESURRECTION

  MASTER OF THREE ARTS

  THERSITES

  A SOCIETY LEADER

  EXPOSITOR VERITATIS

  TO COLONEL DAN. BURNS

  GEORGE A. KNIGHT

  UNARMED

  A POLITICAL VIOLET

  THE SUBDUED EDITOR

  A SCION OF NOBILITY

  THE NIGHT OF ELECTION

  THE CONVICTS’ BALL

  A PRAYER

  TO ONE DETESTED

  THE BOSS’S CHOICE

  A MERCIFUL GOVERNOR

  AN INTERPRETATION

  A SOARING TOAD

  AN UNDRESS UNIFORM

  THE PERVERTED VILLAGE

  AFTER GOLDSMITH

  MR. SHEETS

  A JACK-AT-ALL-VIEWS

  MY LORD POET

  TO THE FOOL-KILLER

  ONE AND ONE ARE TWO

  MONTAGUE LEVERSON

  THE WOFUL TALE OF MR. PETERS

  TWIN UNWORTHIES

  ANOTHER PLAN

  A POLITICAL APOSTATE

  TINKER DICK

  BATS IN SUNSHINE

  A WORD TO THE UNWISE

  ON THE PLATFORM

  A DAMPENED ARDOR

  ADAIR WELCKER, POET

  TO A WORD-WARRIOR

  A CULINARY CANDIDATE

  THE OLEOMARGARINE MAN

  GENESIS

  LLEWELLEN POWELL

  THE SUNSET GUN.

  THE VIDUATE DAME

  FOUR OF A KIND

  ROBERT F. MORROW

  ALFRED CLARKE JR.

  JUDGE RUTLEDGE

  W.H.L. BARNES

  RECONCILIATION

  A VISION OF CLIMATE

  A MASS MEETING

  FOR PRESIDENT, LELAND STANFORD

  FOR MAYOR

  A CHEATING PREACHER

  A CROCODILE

  THE AMERICAN PARTY

  UNCOLONELED
<
br />   THE GATES AJAR

  TIDINGS OF GOOD

  ARBORICULTURE

  A SILURIAN HOLIDAY

  REJECTED

  JUDEX JUDICATUS

  ON THE WEDDING OF AN AËRONAUT

  A HASTY INFERENCE

  A VOLUPTUARY

  AD CATTONUM

  THE NATIONAL GUARDSMAN

  THE BARKING WEASEL

  A REAR ELEVATION

  IN UPPER SAN FRANCISCO

  NIMROD

  CENSOR LITERARUM

  BORROWED BRAINS

  THE FYGHTYNGE SEVENTH

  INDICTED

  OVER THE BORDER

  ONE JUDGE

  TO AN INSOLENT ATTORNEY

  ACCEPTED

  A PROMISED FAST TRAIN

  ONE OF THE SAINTS

  A MILITARY INCIDENT

  SUBSTANCE VERSUS SHADOW

  THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC MORALS

  CALIFORNIA

 

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