UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES THE COLLECTED WORKS OF AMBROSE BIERCE VOLUME IV THE (WOT) COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY The Neale Publishing Company 105-7 v ^ PREFACE 2 OF the verses republished in this volume and the next, some are censorious, and in these the names of real per sons are used without their consent; so it seems fit that "*!) a few words be said of the matter in sober prose. Of my S motive in writing and now republishing these personal o satires I do not care to make either defense or explana- O tion, except with reference to those, who, since my first ^"O censure of them, have passed away. To one having only a reader's interest in the matter it may seem that the co verses relating to those might properly have been omitted N from this collection. But if these pieces, or, indeed, any *> considerable part, of my work in literature, have the in- ^ trinsic interest, which, by this attempt to preserve some V of it I have assumed, their permanent suppression is impossible; it is only a question of when and by whom they will be republished. Some one will surely search them out and put them into circulation. I conceive it to be the right of an author to have his fugitive work in newspapers and periodicals put into a more permanent form during his lifetime if he can; and this is especially true of one whose work, necessarily en gendering animosities, is peculiarly exposed t.o challenge as unjust. That is a charge that can best be examined before time has effaced the evidence. For the death of a man whose unworth I have affirmed, I am in no way accountable, and however sincerely I may regret his pass- 16464.0 io PREFACE ing, I can hardly be expected to consent that it shall affect my literary fortunes. If the satirist who does not accept the remarkable doctrine that while condemning a sin he should spare the sinner were bound to let the life of his work be coterminous with that of his subject his lot in letters were one of peculiar hardship. Persuaded of the validity of all this, I have not hesi tated to reprint even certain " epitaphs," which, once of the living, are now of the dead, as all the others must eventually be. The objection inheres in all forms of applied satire my understanding of whose laws, liberties and limitations, is at least derived from reverent study of the masters. That in respect of matters herein mentioned I have followed their practice can be shown by abundant instance and example. In arranging these verses for publication I have thought it needless to classify them as " serious," " comic," " senti mental," " satirical," and so forth. I do the reader the honor to think that he will readily discern the character of what he is reading, and I entertain the hope that his mood will accommodate itself without disappointment to that of his author. AMBROSE BIERCE. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 9 SHAPES OF CLAY. THE PASSING SHOW 19 ELIXIR VIT.E 22 CONVALESCENT 24 AT THE CLOSE OF THE CANVASS 26 GEOTHEOS 28 POLITICS 29 THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES 30 POLYPHEMUS 31 IN DEFENSE 32 INVOCATION 34 RELIGION 39 Two SOCIALISTS 40 A MORNING FANCY 42 VISIONS OF SIN 44 GENIUS 46 THE TOWN OF DM 47 AN ANARCHIST 53 AN OFFER OF MAR RIAGE 54 ARfcirt VlRUMQUE 57 ON A PROPOSED CREMA TORY 57 PAGE A DEMAND 59 THE WE ATHER- WIGHT. . 61 T. A. H 67 MY MONUMENT 68 MAD 68 FOR COERCION OF CO LOMBIA 70 A TEAGOING ADMIRAL... 72 THE WOOER 74 SILHOUETTES OF ORIEN TALS 76 LAND OF THE PILGRIM'S PRIDE 78 A SINGLE TERMER 80 A PLAGUE OF ASSES 8z IN CUBA 82 FOR A CERTAIN CRITIC.. 85 ARTHUR McEwEN 87 CHARLES AND PETER 87 CONTEMPLATION 89 THE GOLDEN AGE 90 A PROPHET OF PEACE. ... 92 AN UNREFORMABLE RE FORMER 93 THE WORD- WAY IN PAN AMA 95 CONTENTS PAGE THE JACK OF CLUBS 98 A NAVAL METHOD 99 ANOTHER ASPIRANT .... 102 A LEARNER 103 To BRIDGET 104 AFTER TENNYSON 105 To MY BIRD 106 BUSINESS 108 A POSSIBILITY 109 To A CENSOR no " THE WHOLE WORLD KIN" 113 A FUTURE CONVERSATION.: 13 THE HESITATING VET ERAN 115 A YEAR'S " CASUALTIES ".n 8 TO-DAY 118 AN ALIBI 120 A MEETING 127 J. F. B 129 THE DYING STATESMAN. 129 THE DEATH OF GRANT.. 131 THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED.! 3 2 LAUS Lucis 138 NANINE 139 TECHNOLOGY 140 A REPLY TO A LETTER. 142 To OSCAR WILDE 144 BORN LEADERS OF MEN . . 145 THE CRIME OF 1903 146 FOR EXPULSION 148 PAGE JUDEX JOCOSUS ISO "GRAFT" 151 THE TALE OF A CRIME. 151 To THE BARTHOLDI STATUE 153 AN UN MERRY CHRIST MAS , 155 FROM VIRGINIA TO PARIS..: 57 A " MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON" 158 THE FREE TRADER'S LA MENT 159 SUBTERRANEAN PHANTA SIES 160 IN MEMORIAM 163 THE STATESMAN 165 BROTHERS 168 THE CYNIC'S BEQUEST.. .169 CORRECTED NEWS 177 MR. FINK'S DEBATING DONKEY 178 To MY LAUNDRESS 183 FAME 184 OMNES VANITAS 186 CONSOLATION 186 FATE 187 PHILOSOPHER BIMM 187 REMINDED 189 SALVINI IN AMERICA. ...190 ANOTHER WAY 193 ART 193 CONTENTS PAGE To ONE ACROSS THE WAY 194 To A DEBTOR ABROAD... 195 GENESIS 195 LIBERTY 196 THE PASSING OF SHEP HERD 197 To MAUDE 200 THE BIRTH OF VIRTUE.. 201 THE SCURRIL PRESS 201 STANLEY 204 ONE OF THE UNFAIR SEX. 205 THE LORD'S PRAYER ON A COIN 206 AD ABSURDUM 206 SAITH THE CZAR 208 THE ROYAL JESTER 209 A CAREER IN LETTERS.. .213 THE FOLLOWING PAIR... 214 POLITICAL ECONOMY 215 THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. .21 6 INDUSTRIAL DISCONTENT-ZIS TEMPORA MUTANTUR ...219 A FALSE ALARM 220 CONTENTMENT 221 CONSTANCY 223 THE NEW ENOCH ARDEN.224 DISAVOWAL 226 AN AVERAGE 227 INCURABLE 228 ~>\ THE PUN 228 PAGE To NANINE 230 VICE VERSA 230 A BLACKLIST 232 AUTHORITY 232 THE PSORIAD 233 PEACE 237 THANKSGIVING 237 L'AUDACE 240 THE GOD'S VIEW-POINT.. 241 THE ESTHETES 245 WITH MINE OWN PE TARD 246 RESTORED 247 SIRES AND SONS 249 A CHALLENGE 249 Two SHOWS 251 A POET'S HOPE 252 THE WOMAN AND THE DEVIL 254 Two ROGUES 255 THE PIED PIPER OF BROOKLYN 257 NOT GUILTY 257 PRESENTIMENT 258 A STUDY IN GRAY 259 FOR MERIT 261 A BIT OF SCIENCE 261 THE TABLES TURNED... 262 To A DEJECTED POET... 263 THE HUMORIST 264 MONTEFIORE 265 CONTENTS PAGE DISCRETION 266 AN EXILE 266 THE DIVISION SUPERIN TENDENT 267 To A PROFESSIONAL EU LOGIST 268 ELECTION DAY . 270 THE MILITIAMAN 271 A WELCOME 272 A SERENADE 273 THE WISE AND GOOD... 274 THE LOST COLONEL 275 FOR TAT 278 A DILEMMA 279 METEMPSYCHOSIS 281 THE SAINT AND THE MONK 281 IN HIGH LIFE 283 A WHIPPER-IN 284 JUDGMENT 286 A BUBBLE 286 FRANCINE 288 AN EXAMPLE 289 REVENGE 289 THE GENESIS OF EMBAR RASSMENT 291 IN CONTUMACIAM 292 FROM THE MINUTES 292 A WOMAN IN POLITICS .. 294 A BALLAD OF PiKEviLLE.295 AN AUGURY 298 PAGE Lusus POLITICUS 299 BEREAVEMENT 301 A PICKBRAIN 302 THE NAVAL CONSTRUC TOR 302 DETECTED 304 BIMETALISM 304 Two METHODS 306 FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE 306 AN IMPOSTOR 308 FRANCE .309 A GUEST 310 A FALSE PROPHECY 311 A SONG OF THE MANY.. 312 ONE MORNING 313 THE KING OF BORES 313 HISTORY 314 THE HERMIT 315 THE YEARLY LIE 317 AN APOLOGUE 318 DIAGNOSIS 319 j/ FALLEN 319 DIES IR.E 320 ONE MOOD'S EXPRESSION. 326 SOMETHING IN THE PA PERS 327 THE BINNACLE 328 ONE PRESIDENT 329 THE BRIDE 329 THE MAN BORN BLIND.. 330 CONTENTS PAGE A NIGHTMARE 333 A WET SEASON 333 THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS.335 K;EC FABULA DOCET 337 AGAIN 338 HOMO PODUNKENSIS 340 A SOCIAL CALL 341 MY DAY OF LIFE 342 SOME ANTE - MORTEM EPITAPHS A KING OF CRAFT 347 STEPHEN DORSEY 348 MR. JUSTICE FIELD 349 GENERAL B. F. BUTLER. 349 REPARATION 350 DISINCORPORATED 3 50 A KIT 351 DISJUNCTUS 351 A TRENCHER-KNIGHT 351 A VICE-PRESIDENT 352 A WASTED LIFE. 353 THE SCRAP HEAP POESY 357 HOSPITALITY 357 MAGNANIMITY 357 UNDERSTATED 358 AN ATTORNEY-GENERAL.^ 58 FINANCIAL NEWS 358 ASPIRATION 359 DEMOCRACY 359 PAGE AN ENEMY TO LAW AND ORDER 359 FORESIGHT 360 A FAIR DIVISION 360 A LACKING FACTOR 360 THE POLITICIAN 361 ELIHU ROOT 361 AN ERROR 361 VANISHED AT COCK CROW 362 WOMAN 362 A PARTISAN'S PROTEST ..362 A BEQUEST TO Music... 363 ONEIROMANCY 363 JULY FOURTH 363 A PARADOX 364 REEDIFIED 364 A BULLETIN 364 AN INSCRIPTION 365 AN ERRONEOUS ASSUMP TION 365 A CONSTRUCTOR 365 GOD COMPLIES 366 IN ARTICULO MORTIS 366 THE DISCOVERERS 366 UNEXPOUNDED 366 THE EASTERN QUES TION 367 Two TYPES 367 To A CRITIC OF TEN NYSON 367 CONTENTS PAGE COOPERATION 368 HUMILITY 368 STRAINED RELATIONS 368 EXONERATION 369 AFTER PORTSMOUTH 369 A VOICE FROM PEKIN...369 A Pious RITE 370 JUSTICE 370 AT THE BEACH 370 AN INFRACTION OF THE RULES 371 CONVERSELY 371 A WARNING 371 PSYCHOGRAPHS 372 PAGE FOR WOUNDS 372 A LITERARY METHOD 372 BACK TO NATURE 373 RUDOLPH BLOCK 373 BOYCOTT 373 To HER 374 CREATION 374 REBUKE 374 PRAYER 375 THE LONG FEAR 375 AN INSPIRED PERFORM ANCE 375 SEPULTURE 376 SHAPES OF CLAY THE PASSING SHOW I I know not if it was a dream. I viewed A city where the restless multitude, Between the eastern and the western deep Had reared gigantic fabrics, strong and rude. Colossal palaces crowned every height; Towers from valleys climbed into the light; O'er dwellings at their feet, great golden domes Hung in the blue, barbarically bright. But now, new-glimmering to-east, the day Touched the black masses with a grace of gray, Dim spires of temples to the nation's God Studding high spaces of the wide survey. Well did the roofs their solemn secret keep Of life and death stayed by the truce of sleep, Yet whispered of an hour when sleepers wake, The fool to hope afresh, the wise to weep. 20 THE COLLECTED WORKS The gardens greened upon the builded hills Above the tethered thunders of the mills With sleeping wheels unstirred to service yet By the tamed torrents and the quickened rills. A hewn acclivity, reprieved a space, Looked on the builder's blocks about his base And bared his wounded breast in sign to say: " Strike ! 'tis my destiny to lodge your race, " 'Twas but a breath ago the mammoth browsed Upon my slopes, and in my caves I housed Your shaggy fathers in their nakedness, While on their foemen's offal they caroused." Ships from afar afforested the bay. Within their huge and chambered bodies lay The wealth of continents; and merrily sailed The hardy argosies to far Cathay. Beside the city of the living spread Strange fellowship! the city of the dead; And much I wondered what its humble folk, To see how bravely they were housed, had said. Noting how firm their habitations stood, Broad-based and free of perishable wood How deep in granite and how high in brass The names were wrought of eminent and good, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 21 I said : " When gold or power is their aim, The smile of beauty or the wage of shame, Men dwell in cities; to this place they fare When they would conquer an abiding fame." From the red East the sun a solemn rite Crowned with a flame the cross upon a height Above the dead; and then with all his strength Struck the great city all aroar with light! II I know not if it was a dream. I came Unto a land where something seemed the same That I had known as 'twere but yesterday, But what it was I could not rightly name. It was a strange and melancholy land, Silent and desolate. On either hand Lay waters of a sea that seemed as dead, And dead above it seemed the hills to stand. Grayed all with age, those lonely hills ah me, How worn and weary they appeared to be! Between their feet long dusty fissures clove The plain in aimless windings to the sea. 22 THE COLLECTED WORKS One hill there was which, parted from the rest, Stood where the eastern water curved a-west. Silent and passionless it stood. I thought I saw a scar upon its giant breast. The sun with sullen and portentous gleam Hung like a menace on the sea's extreme ; Nor the dead waters, nor the far, bleak bars Of cloud were conscious of his failing beam. It was a dismal and a dreadful sight, That desert in its cold, uncanny light; No soul but I alone to mark the fear And imminence of everlasting night! All presages and prophecies of doom Glimmered and babbled in the ghastly gloom, And in the midst of that accursed scene A wolf sat howling on a broken tomb. ELIXIR Of life's elixir I had writ, when sleep (Pray Heaven it spared him who the writing read!) Settled upon my senses with so deep A stupefaction that men thought me dead. The centuries stole by with noiseless tread, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 23 Like spectres in the twilight of my dream ; I saw mankind in dim procession sweep Through life, oblivion at each extreme. Meanwhile my beard, like Barbarossa's growing, Loaded my lap and o'er my knees was flowing. The generations came with dance and song, And each observed me curiously there. Some asked: " Who was he? " Others in the throng Replied : " A wicked monk who slept at prayer." Some said I was a saint, and some a bear These all were women. So the young and gay, Visibly wrinkling as they fared along, Doddered at last on failing limbs away ; Though some, their footing in my beard entangled, Fell into its abysses and were strangled. At last a generation came that walked More slowly forward to the common tomb, Then altogether stopped. The women talked Excitedly; the men, with eyes agloom Looked darkly orl them with a look of doom; And one cried out: "We are immortal now How need we these?" And a dread figure stalked, Silent, with gleaming axe and shrouded brow, And all men cried: " Decapitate the women, Or soon there'll be no room to stand or swim in ! " 24 THE COLLECTED WORKS So (in my dream) each lovely head was chopped From its fair shoulders, and but men alone Were left in all the world. Birth being stopped, Enough of room remained in every zone, And Peace ascended Woman's vacant throne. Thus, life's elixir being found (the quacks Their bread-and-butter in it gladly sopped) 'Twas made worth having by the headsman's axe. Seeing which, I gave myself a hearty shaking, And crumbled all to powder in the waking. CONVALESCENT What! " Out of danger?" Can the slighted Dame Or canting Pharisee no more defame? Will Treachery caress my hand no more, Nor Hatred lie alurk about my door? Ingratitude, with benefits dismissed, Not understanding what 'tis all about, Will Envy henceforth not retaliate For virtues it were vain to emulate? Will Ignorance my knowledge fail to scout, Not understanding what 'tis all about, Yet feeling in its light so mean and small That all his little soul is turned to gall? What ! " Out of danger ? " Jealousy disarmed ? Greed from exaction magically charmed ? OF AMBROSE BIERCE 25 Ambition stayed from trampling whom it meets. Like horses fugitive in crowded streets? The Bigot, with his candle, book and bell, Tongue-tied, unlunged and paralyzed as well? The Critic righteously to justice haled, His own ear to the post securely nailed What most he dreads unable to inflict, And powerless to hawk the faults he's picked? The Liar choked upon his choicest lie, And impotent alike to vilify Or flatter for the gold of thrifty men Who hate his person but employ his pen Who love and loathe, respectively, the dirt Belonging to his character an'd shirt? What ! " Out of danger ? " Nature's minions all, Like hounds returning to the huntsman's call, Obedient to the unwelcome note That stays them from the quarry's bursting throat? Famine and Pestilence and Earthquake dire, Torrent and Tempest, Lightning, Frost and Fire, The soulless Tiger and the mindless Snake, The noxious Insect from the stagnant lake, These from their immemorial prey restrained, Their fury baffled and their power chained ? I'm safe? Is that what the physician said? What! "Out of danger?" Then, by Heaven, I'm dead! 26 THE COLLECTED WORKS AT THE CLOSE OF THE CANVASS 'Twas a Venerable Person, whom I met one Sunday morning, All appareled as a prophet of a melancholy sect; And in a Jeremiad of objurgatory warning He lifted up his jodel to the following effect: " O ye sanguinary statesmen, intermit your verbal tussles ! O ye editors and orators, consent to hear my lay! Rest a little while the digital and maxillary muscles And attend to what a Venerable Person has to say. " Cease your writing, cease your shouting, cease your wild unearthly lying; Cease to bandy such expressions as are never, never found In the letter of a lover; cease "exposing" and "replying" Let there be abated fury and a decrement of sound. " For to-morrow will be Monday and the fifth day of November Only day of opportunity before the final rush. Carpe diem! go conciliate each person who's a member Of the other party do so while you can without a blush. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 27 " Lo ! the time is close upon you when the madness of the season Having howled itself to silence like a Minnesota 'clone, Will at last be superseded by the still, small voice of reason, When the whelpage of your folly you would willingly disown. "Ah, 'tis mournful to consider what remorses will be thronging, With a consciousness of having been so ghastly indis creet, When by accident untoward two ex-gentlemen belonging To the opposite political denominations meet! "Yes, 'tis melancholy, truly, to forecast the fierce, unruly Supersurging of their blushes, like the flushes upon high When Aurora Borealis lights her circumpolar palace And in customary manner sets her banner in the sky. " Each will think : ' This falsifier knows that I too am a liar. Curse him for a son of Satan, all unholily compound! Curse my leader for another! Curce that pelican, my mother! Would to God that I when little in my victual had been drowned! ' " 28 THE COLLECTED WORKS Then that venerable warner disappeared around a cor ner, And the season of unreason having also taken flight, All the cheeks of men were burning like the skies to crimson turning When Aurora Borealis fires her premises by night. GEOTHEOS As sweet as the look of a lover Saluting the eyes of a maid That blossom to blue as the maid Is ablush to the glances above her, The sunshine is gilding the glade And lifting the lark out of shade. Sing therefore high praises, and therefore Sing songs that are ancient as gold, Of earth in her garments of gold ; Nor ask of their meaning, nor wherefore They charm as of yore, for behold ! The Earth is as fair as of old. Sing songs of the pride of the mountains, And songs of the strength of the seas, And the fountains that fall to the seas OF AMBROSE BIERCE 29 From the hands of the hills, and the fountains That shine in the temples of trees, In valleys of roses and bees. Sing songs that are dreamy and tender, Of slender Arabian palms, And shadows that circle the palms, Where caravans out of the splendor, Are kneeling in blossoms and balms, In islands of infinite calms. Barbaric, O Man, was thy runing When mountains were stained as with wine By the dawning of Time, and as wine Were the seas, yet its echoes are crooning, Achant in the gusty pine And the pulse of the poet's line. POLITICS That land full surely hastens to its end Where public sycophants in homage bend The populace to flatter, and repeat The doubled echoes of its loud conceit. Lowly their attitude but high their aim, They creep to eminence through paths of shame, Till, fixed securely in the seats of pow'r, The dupes they flattered they at last devour. 30 THE COLLECTED WORKS THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES With crow bones all the land is white, From the gates of morn to the gates of night. Picked clean, they lie on the cumbered ground, And the politician's paunch is round ; And he strokes it down and across as he sings: " I've eaten my fill of the legs and wings, The neck, the back, the pontifical nose, Breast, belly and gizzard, for everything goes. The meat that's dark (and there's none that's white) Exceeded the need of my appetite, But I've bravely stuck to the needful work That a hungry domestic hog would shirk. I've eaten the fowl that the Fates commend To reluctant lips of the People's Friend. Rank unspeakably, bitter as gall, Is the bird, but I've eaten it, feathers and all. I'm a dutiful statesman, I am, although I really don't like a diet of crow. So I've dined all alone in a furtive way, But my platter I've cleaned every blessed day. They say that I bolt ; so I do my bird ; They say that I sulk, but they've widely erred ! O Lord! if my enemies only knew How I'm full to the throat with the corvic stew OF AMBROSE BIERCE 31 They'd open their ears to hear me profess The faith compelled by the corvic stress, (For, alas! necessity knows no law) In the heavenly caucus ' Caw ! Caw ! Caw ! ' " And that ornithanthropical person tried By flapping his arms on the air to ride; But I knew by the way that he clacked his bill He was just the poor, featherless biped, Dave Hill. 1896. POLYPHEMUS Fwas a sick young man with a face ungay And an eye that was all alone ; And he shook his head in a hopeless way As he sat on a roadside stone. " O, ailing youth, what untoward fate Has made the sun to set On your mirth and eye ? " " I'm constrained to state I'm an ex-West Point cadet. ' 'Twas at cannon-practice I got my hurt And my present frame of mind; For the gun went off with a double spurt Before it, and also behind ! " 32 THE COLLECTED WORKS " How sad, how sad, that a fine young chap, When studying how to kill, Should meet with so terrible a mishap Precluding eventual skill. " Ah, woful to think that a weapon made For mowing down the foe Should commit so dreadful an escapade As to turn about to mow ! " No more he heeded while I condoled : He was wandering in his mind; His lonely eye unconsidered rolled, And his views he thus defined: " 'Twas O for a breach of the peace 'twas O For an international brawl! But a piece of the breech ah no, ah no, I didn't want that at all." IN DEFENSE You may say if you please, Johnny Bull, that our girls Are crazy to marry your dukes and your earls ; But I've heard that the maids of your own little isle Greet bachelor lords with a favoring smile. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 33 Nay, titles, 'tis said in defense of our fair, Are popular here because popular there; And for them our ladies persistently ,go Because 'tis exceedingly English, you know. Whatever the motive, you'll have to confess The effort's attended with easy success; And pardon the freedom 'tis thought, over here, 'Tis mortification you mask with a sneer. It's all very well, sir, your scorn to parade Of the high nasal twang of the Yankee maid, But, ah, to my lord when he dares to propose No sound is so sweet as that " Yes " from the nose. Ah, well, if the dukes and the earls and that lot Can stand it (God succor them if they can not!) Your commoners ought to assent, I am sure, And what they're not called on to suffer, endure. " 'Tis nothing but money ? your nobles are bought " ? As to that, I submit, it is commonly thought That England's a country not specially free Of Crcesi and (if you'll allow it) Croesae. You've many a widow and many a girl With money to purchase a duke or an earl. 34 THE COLLECTED WORKS 'Tis a very remarkable thing, you'll agree, When goods import buyers from over the sea. Alas for the woman of Albion's isle! She may simper ; as well as she can she may smile ; She may wear pantalettes and an air of repose But my lord of the future will talk through his nose. INVOCATION Read at the Celebration of Independence in San Francisco, in 1888. Goddess of Liberty! O thou Whose tearless eyes behold the chain, And look unmoved upon the slain, Eternal peace upon thy brow, Before thy shrine the races press, Thy perfect favor to implore The proudest tyrant asks no more, The ironed anarchist no less. Thine altar-coals that touch the lips Of prophets kindle, too, the brand By Discord flung with wanton hand Among the houses and the ships. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 35 Upon thy tranquil front the star Burns bleak and passionless and white, Its cold inclemency of light More dreadful than the shadows are. Thy name we do not here invoke Our civic rites to sanctify: Enthroned in thy remoter sky, Thou heedest not our broken yoke. Thou carest not for such as we: Our millions die to serve the still And secret purpose of thy will. They perish what is that to thee? The light that fills the patriot's tomb Is not of thee. The shining crown Compassionately offered down To those who falter in the gloom, And fall, and call upon thy name, And die desiring 'tis the sign Of a diviner love than thine, Rewarding with a richer fame. To him alone let freemen cry Who hears alike the victor's shout, 36 THE COLLECTED WORKS The song of faith, the moan of doubt, And bends him from his nearer sky. God of my country and my race! So greater than the gods of old So fairer than the prophets told Who dimly saw and feared thy face, Who didst but half reveal thy will And gracious ends to their desire, Behind the dawn's advancing fire Thy tender day-beam veiling still, To whom the unceasing suns belong, And cause is one with consequence, To whose divine, inclusive sense The moan is blended with the song, Whose laws, imperfect and unjust, Thy just and perfect purpose serve: The needle, howsoe'er it swerve, Still warranting the sailor's trust, God, lift thy hand and make us free To crown the work thou hast designed. O, strike away the chains that bind Our souls to one idolatry ! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 37 The liberty thy love hath given We thank thee for. We thank thee for Our great dead fathers' holy war Wherein our manacles were riven. We thank thee for the stronger stroke Ourselves delivered and incurred When thine incitement half unheard The chains we riveted we broke. We thank thee that beyond the sea Thy people, growing ever wise, Turn to the west their serious eyes And dumbly strive to be as we. As when the sun's returning flame Upon the Nileside statue shone, And struck from the enchanted stone The music of a mighty fame, Let Man salute the rising day Of Liberty, but not adore. 'Tis Opportunity no more A useful, not a sacred, ray. It bringeth good, it bringeth ill, As he possessing shall elect. 38 THE COLLECTED WORKS He maketh it of none effect Who walketh not within thy will. Give thou more or less, as we Shall serve the right or serve the wrong. Confirm our freedom but so long As we are worthy to be free. But when (O, distant be the time!) Majorities in passion draw Insurgent swords to murder Law, And all the land is red with crime; Or nearer menace ! when the band Of feeble spirits cringe and plead To the gigantic strength of Greed, And fawn upon his iron hand, Nay, when the steps to state are worn In hollows by the feet of thieves, And Mammon sits among the sheaves And chuckles while the reapers mourn: Then stay thy miracle! replace The broken throne, repair the chain, Restore the interrupted reign And veil again thy patient face. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 39 Lo! here upon the world's extreme We stand with lifted arms and dare By thine eternal name to swear Our country, which so fair we deem Upon whose hills, a bannered throng, The spirits of the sun display Their flashing lances day by day And hear the sea's pacific song Shall be so ruled in right and grace That men shall say: " O, drive afield The lawless eagle from the shield, And call an angel to the place ! " RELIGION Hassan Bedreddin, clad in rags, ill-shod, Sought the great temple of the living God. The worshipers arose and drove him forth, And one in power beat him with a rod. "Allah," he cried, "thou seest what I got: Thy servants bar me from the sacred spot." " Be comforted," the Holy One replied ; " It is the only place where I am not." 40 THE COLLECTED WORKS TWO SOCIALISTS Brand Whitlock sped from Hell through space, To be remanded never For having such a saintly face, Set free forever, With due apology. He came To a world so base and bestial No tongue infernal spake its name No tongue celestial. So foul it was that even He Had cast it off Who made it: Adrift in space, as on a sea, No mooring stayed it That orb unclean, denied the aid Of gravitation's tether, For centuries had blindly strayed Lost altogether! The sun disdainfully declined To light the villain planet, And the whole universe combined To curse and ban it. 41 The Thief Impenitent, his grim Recusance unabated, Was its sole occupant: for him It was created. For when the wretch was newly dead 'Twas thought Hell had not ample Restraints to check the local spread Of his example, Nor apparatus that insured A proper pang; though lately The woes that he at first endured Had softened greatly. But still one fierce, vain longing he Suffered, nor could o'ercome it The wish to sit in reverie On Calvary's summit. Beneath that orb's unjoyous sky Brand Whitlock found the sinner. Affinity ! the outer eye Lit by the inner. Said Whitlock : " Here my stay is brief ; Take, brother, ere we sever, 42 THE COLLECTED WORKS Thy pardon. Be a better thief Henceforth forever. " God gives me power to condone All scalawags' offending, For the sweet faith that I have shown In their amending." When so he'd said with solemn grace As was that good soul's habit, The Thief directly into space Sprang like a rabbit! (He might have left at any time Had freedom been his passion, For God had long forgot his crime. Crime was the fashion.) The Saint, resuming soon his flight, Met him through chaos floating. Three stolen post-holes that poor wight Was gaily toting. A MORNING FANCY I drifted (or I seemed to) in a boat Upon the surface of a shoreless sea Whereon no ship nor anything did float, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 43 Save only the frail bark supporting me; And that it was so shadowy seemed to be Almost from out the subtle azure wrought Of the great ocean underneath its keel; And all that blue profound appeared as naught But thicker sky, translucent to reveal, Miles down, whatever through its spaces glided, Or at the bottom traveled or abided. Great cities there I saw; of rich and poor The palace and the hovel ; mountains, vales, Forest and field; the desert and the moor; Tombs of the good and wise who'd lived in jails ; Seas of a denser fluid, white with sails Pushed at by currents moving here and there And sensible to sight above the flat Of that opaquer deep. Ah, strange and fair The nether world that I was gazing at With beating heart from that exalted level, And, lest I founder, trembling like the devil! The cities all were populous : men swarmed In public places chattered, laughed and wept; And savages their shining bodies warmed At fires in primal woods. The wild beast leapt Upon its prey and slew it as it slept. Armies went forth to battle on the plain 44 THE COLLECTED WORKS So far, far down in that unfathomed deep The living seemed as silent as the slain, Nor even the widows could be heard to weep. One might have thought their shaking was but laughter ; And, truly, most were married shortly after. Above the wreckage of that silent fray Strange fishes swam in circles, round and round- Black, double-finned ; and once a little way A bubble rose and burst without a sound And a man tumbled out upon the ground. Lord! 'twas an eerie thing to drift apace On that pellucid sea, beneath black skies And o'er the heads of an undrowning race! And when I woke I said to her surprise Who came with chocolate, for me to drink it: " The atmosphere is deeper than you think it." VISIONS OF SIN KRASLAJORSK, SIBERIA. My eyes are better, and I shall travel slowly toward home. DANENHOWER. From the regions of the Night, Coming with recovered sight From the spell of darkness free, What will Danenhower see ? OF AMBROSE BIERCE 45 He will see when he arrives Doctors taking human lives. He will see a learned judge Whose decision will not budge Till both litigants are fleeced And his palm is duly greased. Lawyers he will see who fight Day by day and night by night; Never both upon a side, Though their fees they still divide. Preachers he will see who teach That it is divine to preach That they fan a sacred fire And are worthy of their hire. He will see a trusted wife, Pride of some good husband's life, Enter at a certain door And but he will see no more. He will see Good Templars reel See a prosecutor steal, And a father beat his child. He'll perhaps see Oscar Wilde. From the regions of the Night Coming with recovered sight From the bliss of blindness free, That's what Danenhower'll see. 1882. 46 THE COLLECTED WORKS GENIUS What is the thing called Genius? One has said 'Tis general ability directed Into a special channel. One, instead, Proffers a definition much respected By toiling dullards: genius, he explains, Is infinite capacity for taking pains. Max Nordau, seeing he has not the thing, Has solemnly decided, with Lombroso, That genius is degeneracy. Ring The curtain down the show is only so-so; I'd rather see a dog-fight than sit out This inconclusive definition-bout. What, then, is genius? Faith, I'm only sure That I am deep in doubt about the matter; But this I think: of two in literature He is the greater genius who's the fatter. 'Twas in an age less prosperous that those Were kings of thought who starved by verse and prose. Lo ! the lean rhapsodist whose soul surveys, Ecstatic, his unprofitable vision, Interprets it in cleanly speech; arrays OF AMBROSE BIERCE 47 His jeweled words with scholarly precision! Faith, he's a dunce or he would never lack The means to wedge his belly from his back. 'Twere passing easy to allay his pang Had he the genius that's to say, the insight Commercial. If he would but sing in slang He'd earn the wherewithal to make his skin tight. Genius (let's now define the word afresh) Is the capacity to take on flesh. Spirit of Letters, hail! Thy reign is Now; Thy ministers are gentlemen that waddle Children of light and leading who avow They swap, for tallow, speech that's not a model, For laminated kidney-suet trade Unsavory words. You must be stout, George Ade. THE TOWN OF Swains and maidens, young and old, You to me this tale have told. Where the squalid town of Dae Irks the comfortable sea, Spreading webs to gather fish, As for wealth we set a wish, 48 THE COLLECTED WORKS Dwelt a king by right divine, Sprung from Adam's royal line. Town of Dae by the sea, Divers kinds of kings there be. Name nor fame had Picklepip: Ne'er a soldier nor a ship Bore his banners in the sun; Naught knew he of kingly sport, And he held his royal court Under an inverted tun. Love and roses, ages through, Bloom where cot and trellis stand; Never yet these blossoms grew Never yet was room for two In a cask upon the strand. So it happened, as it ought, That his simple schemes he wrought Through the lagging summer's day In a solitary way. So it happened, as was best, That he took his nightly rest With no dreadful weight of woe, This way eyed and that way tressed, Featured thus, and thus, and so, Lying lead-like on a breast By cares of state enough oppressed. Yet in dreams his fancy rude OF AMBROSE BIERCE 49 Claimed a lordly latitude. Town of DEC by the sea, Dreamers mate above their state And waken back to their degree. Once to cask himself away He prepared at close of day. As he tugged with swelling throat At a most unkingly coat Not to get it off but on, For the serving sun was gone Passed a silk-appareled sprite Toward her castle on the height, Seized and set the garment right. Turned the startled Picklepip Splendid crimson cheek and lip! Turned again to sneak away, But she bade the villain stay, Bade him thank her, which he did With a speech that slipped and slid, Sprawled and stumbled in its gait As a dancer tries to skate. Town of Dae by the sea, In the face of silk and lace Rags too bold should never be. Lady Minnow cocked her head: " Mister Picklepip," she said, 50 THE COLLECTED WORKS " Do you ever think to wed ? " Town of Dae by the sea, No fair lady ever made a Wicked speech like that to me! Wretched little Picklepip Said he hadn't any ship, Any flocks at his command, Nor to feed them any land; Said he never in his life Owned a mine to keep a wife. But the guilty stammer so That his meaning wouldn't flow; So he thought his aim to reach By some figurative speech: Said his Fate had been unkind Had pursued him from behind (How the mischief could it else?) Came upon him unaware, Caught him all too roughly there Gushed the little lady's glee Like a gush of golden bells: " Picklepip, why, that is me ! " Town of Dae by the sea, Grammar's for great scholars she Loved the summer and the lea. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 51 Stupid little Picklepip Allowed the subtle hint to slip Maundered on about the ship That he did not chance to own; Told this grievance o'er and o'er, Knowing that she knew before; Told her how he dwelt alone. Lady Minnow, for reply, Cut him off with " So do I." But she reddened at the fib; Servitors had she, ad lib. Town of Dae by the sea, In her youth who speaks no truth Ne'er shall young and honest be. Witless little Picklepip Manned again his mental ship And veered her with a sudden shift: Painted to the lady's thought How he wrestled and he wrought Stoutly with the swimming drift By the kindly river brought From the mountain to the sea, Fuel for the town of Dae. Tedious tale for lady's ear: From her castle on the height, She had watched her water-knight Through the seasons of a year 52 THE COLLECTED WORKS Challenge more than met his view And conquer better than he knew. Now she shook her pretty pate And stamped her foot 'twas growing late: " Mister Picklepip, when I Drifting seaward pass you by; When the waves my forehead kiss And my tresses float above Dead and drowned for lack of love You'll be sorry, sir, for this ! " And the silly creature cried Feared, perchance, the rising tide. Town of Da3 by the sea, Madam Adam, when she had 'em. May have been as bad as she. Fiat lux! Love's lumination Fell in floods of revelation! Blinded brain by world aglare, Sense of pulses in the air, Sense of swooning and the beating Of a voice somewhere repeating Something indistinctly heard! And the soul of Picklepip Sprang upon his trembling lip, But he spake no further word Of the wealth he did not own; In that moment had outgrown OF AMBROSE BIERCE 53 Ship and mine and flock and land Even his cask upon the strand. Dropped a stricken star to earth, Type of wealth and worldly worth. Clomb the moon into the sky, Type of love's immensity! Shaking silver seemed the sea, Throne of God the town of Dael Town of Dae by the sea, From above there cometh love, Blessing all good souls that be. AN ANARCHIST False to his art and to the high command God laid upon him, Demagogo's hand Beats all in vain the harp he thrilled before: It yields a jingle and it yields no more. No more the strings beneath his finger-tips Sing harmonies divine. No more his lips, Touched with a living coal from sacred fires, Lead the sweet chorus of the golden wires. The voice is raucous and the phrases squeak; They labor, they complain, they sweat, they reek! The more the wayward, disobedient song Errs from the right to advocate the wrong, 54 THE COLLECTED WORKS More diligently still the singer strums, To drown the horrid sound, with all his thumbs. Gods, what a spectacle ! The angels lean Out of high Heaven to view the sorry scene, And Israfel, " whose heart-strings are a lute," Though now compassion makes their music mute, Among the weeping company appears, Pearls in his eyes and cotton in his ears. AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE Once I " dipt into the future far as human eye could see," And saw it was not Sandow, nor John Sullivan, but she Emancipated Woman, who was weeping as she ran Here and there for the discovery of Expurgated Man. But the sun of Evolution ever rose and ever set, And that tardiest of mortals hadn't evoluted yet. Hence the tears that she cascaded, hence the sighs that tore apart All the tendinous connections of her indurated heart. Cried Emancipated Woman, as she wearied of the search: " In Advancing I have left myself distinctly in the lurch ! Seeking still a worthy partner, from the land of brutes and dudes I have penetrated rashly into manless solitudes. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 55 Now without a mate of any kind where am I? that's to say, Where shall I be to-morrow? where exert my rightful sway And the purifying strength of my emancipated mind? Can solitude be lifted up, vacuity refined? Calling, calling from the shadows in the rear of my Advance From the region of Unprogress in the dark domain of Chance- Long I heard the Unevolvable beseeching my return To share the degradation he's reluctant to unlearn. But I've held my way regardless, evoluting year by year Till I'm what you now behold me or would if you were here A condensed Emancipation and a Purifier proud, An Independent Entity appropriately loud! Independent? Yes, in spirit, but (O woful, woful state!) Doomed to premature extinction by privation of a mate To extinction or reversion, for Unexpurgated Man Still awaits me in the backward if I sicken of the van. O the horrible dilemma! to be odiously linked With an Undeveloped Species, or become a Type Ex tinct!" 56 THE COLLECTED WORKS As Emancipated Woman wailed her sorrow to the air, Stalking out of desolation came a being strange and rare Plato's Man! a biped, featherless from mandible to rump, Its wings two quilless flippers and its tail a plumeless stump. First it scratched and then it clucked, as if in hospitable terms It invited her to banquet on imaginary worms. Then it strutted up before her with a lifting of the head, And in accents of affection and of sympathy it said: " My estate is some'at 'umble, but I'm qualified to draw Near the hymeneal altar and whack up my heart and claw To Emancipated Anything as walks upon the earth ; And them things is at your service for whatever they are worth. I'm sure to be congenial, marm, nor e'er deserve a scowl I'm Emancipated Rooster, I am Expurgated Fowl ! " From the future and its wonders I withdrew my gaze, and then Wrote this wild, unfestive lay of Evolutionated Hen. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 57 ARMA VIRUMQUE "Ours is a Christian army"; so he said A regiment of bangomen who led. " And ours a Christian navy," added he Who sailed a thunder-junk upon the sea. Better they know than men unwarlike do What is an army, and a navy too. Pray God there may be sent them by-and-by The knowledge what a Christian is, and why. For somewhat lamely the conception runs Of a brass-buttoned Jesus firing guns. ON A PROPOSED CREMATORY When a fair bridge is builded o'er the gulf Between two cities, some ambitious fool, Hot for distinction, pleads for earliest leave To push his clumsy feet upon the span, That men in after years may single him, Saying: "Behold the fool who first went o'er!" So be it when, as now the promise is, Next summer sees the edifice complete 58 THE COLLECTED WORKS Which some do name a crematorium, Within the vantage of whose greater maw's Quicker digestion we shall cheat the worm And circumvent the handed mole who loves, With tunnel, adit, drift and roomy stope, To mine our mortal parts in all their dips And spurs and angles. Let the fool stand forth To link his name with this fair enterprise, As first decarcassed by the flame. And if With rival greedings for the fiery fame They push in clamoring multitudes, or if With unaccustomed modesty they all Hold off, being something loth to qualify, Let me select the fittest for the rite. By Heaven! I'll make so warrantable, wise And excellent censure of their true deserts, And such a searching canvass of their claims, That none shall bait the allot. I'll spread my choice Upon the main and general of those Who, moved of holy impulse, pulpit-born, Protested 'twere a sacrilege to burn God's gracious images, designed to rot Who bellowed for the right of way for each Distempered carrion through the water pipes. With such a sturdy, boisterous exclaim They did discharge themselves from their own throats 59 Against the splintered gates of audience 'Twere wholesomer to take them in at mouth Than ear. These shall burn first: their ignoble And seasoned substances trunks, legs and arms, Blent indistinguishable in a mass, Like winter-woven serpents in a pit, None vantaged with unfair precedency And all impartially alive shall serve As fueling to fervor the retort For after cineration of true men. A DEMAND You promised to paint me a picture, Dear Mat, And I was to pay you in rhyme. Although I am loth to inflict your Most easy of consciences, I'm Of opinion that fibbing is awful, And breaking a contract unlawful, Indictable, too, as a crime, A slight and all that. If, Lady Unbountiful, any Of that By mortals called pity has part 60 THE COLLECTED WORKS In your obdurate soul if a penny You care for the health of my heart, By performing your undertaking You'll succor that organ from breaking And spare it for some new smart, As puss does a rat. Do you think it is very becoming, Dear Mat, To deny me my rights evermore? And bless you! if I begin summing Your sins they will make a long score! You never were generous, madam: If you had been Eve and I Adam You'd have given me naught but the core, And little of that. Had I been content with a Titian, A cat By Landseer, a meadow by Claude, No doubt I'd have had your permission To take it by purchase abroad. But why should I sail o'er the ocean For Landseers and Claudes? I've a notion All's bad that the critics belaud. I wanted a Mat. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 61 Presumption's a sin, and I suffer For that: But still you did say that sometime, If I'd pay you enough (here's enougher That's more than enough) of rhyme You'd paint me a picture. I pay you Hereby in advance ; and I pray you Condone, while you can, your crime, And send me a Mat. But if you don't do so I warn you, Dear Mat, I'll raise such a clamor and cry On Parnassus the Muses will scorn you As mocker of poets and fly With bitter complaints to Apollo: " Her spirit is proud, her heart hollow, Her beauty " they'll hardly deny, On second thought, that! THE WEATHER-WIGHT The way was long, the hill was steep, My footing scarcely I could keep. The night, enshrouded me in gloom, I heard the ocean's distant boom 62 THE COLLECTED WORKS The trampling of the surges vast Was borne upon the rising blast. " God help the mariner," I cried, " Whose ship to-morrow braves the tide ! " Then from the impenetrable dark A solemn voice made this remark: " For this locality warm, bright ; Barometer unchanged; breeze light." " Unseen consoler-man," I cried, " Whoe'er you are, where'er abide, " Thanks but my care is somewhat less For Jack's, than for my own, distress. " Could I but find a friendly roof, Small odds what weather were aloof. " For he whose comfort is secure Another's pain can well endure." " The latch-string's out," the voice replied, "And so's the door jes' step inside." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 63 Then through the darkness I discerned A hovel into which I turned. Groping about beneath its thatch, I struck my head and then a match. A candle by that gleam betrayed Soon lent paraffinaceous aid. A pallid, bald and thin old man I saw, who this complaint began: " Through summer suns and winter snows I sets observin' of my toes. " I rambles with increasin' pain The path of duty, but in vain. " Rewards and honors pass me by- No Congress hears this raven cry ! " Filled with astonishment, I spoke : "Thou ancient raven, why this croak? "With observation of your toes What Congress has to do, God knows ! 64 THE COLLECTED WORKS "And swallow me if e'er I knew That one could sit and ramble too ! " To answer me that ancient swain Took up his parable again : " Through winter snows and summer suns A Weather Bureau here I runs. " I calls the turn, and can declare Jes' when she'll storm and when she'll fair. " Three times a day I sings out clear The probs to all which wants to hear. " Some weather stations, run with light Frivolity, is seldom right. " A scientist from times remote, In Scienceville my birth is wrote. " And when I h'ist the ' rainy ' sign Jes' take your clo'es in off the line." " Not mine, O marvelous old man, The methods of your art to scan, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 65 "Yet here no instruments there be Nor 'ometer nor 'scope I see. " Did you (if questions you permit) At the asylum leave your kit ? " That strange old man with motion rude Rose to surprising altitude. " Tools (and sarcazzems too) I scorns I tells the weather by my corns. " No doors and windows here you see The wind and m'isture enters free. " No fires nor lights, no wool nor fur Here falsifies the tempercher. " My corns unleathered I expose To feel the rain's foretellin' throes. " No stockin' from their ears keeps out The comin' tempest's warnin' shout. " Sech delicacy some has got They know next summer's to be hot. 66 THE COLLECTED WORKS " This here one says ( for that he's best) : ' Storm center passin' to the west.' " This feller's vitals is transfixed With frost for Janawary sixt'. " One chap jes' now is occypied In fig'rin on next Fridy's tide. " I've shaved this cuss so thin and true He'll spot a fog in South Peru. " Sech are my tools, which ne'er a swell Observatory can excel. " By long a-studyin' their throbs I catches onto all the probs." Much more, no doubt, he would have said, But suddenly he turned and fled; For in mine eye's indignant green Lay storms that he had not foreseen, Concerning which, as Fear appeals To Speed, his toes had told his heels. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 67 T. A. H. Yes, he was that, or that, as you prefer Did so and so, though, faith, it wasn't all; Lived like a fool, or a philosopher, And had whatever's needful to a fall. As rough inflections on a planet merge In the true bend of the gigantic sphere, Nor mar the perfect, circle of its verge, So in the survey of his worth the small Asperities of spirit disappear, Lost in the grander curves of character. He lately was hit hard : none knew but I The strength and terror of that ghastly stroke Not even herself. He uttered not a cry, But set his teeth and made a revelry ; Drank like a devil straining sometimes red The goblet's edge ; diced with his conscience ; spread, Like Sisyphus, a feast for Death and spoke His welcome in a tongue so long forgot That even his ancient guest remembered not What race had cursed him in it. Thus my friend, Still conjugating with each failing sense The verb " to die " in every mood and tense, Pursued his awful humor to the end. When like a stormy dawn the crimson broke From his white lips he smiled and mutely bled, And, having meanly lived, is grandly dead. 68 THE COLLECTED WORKS MY MONUMENT It is pleasant to think, as I'm watching my ink A-drying along my paper, That a monument fine will surely be mine When death has extinguished my taper. From each pitiless scribe of the critic tribe Purged clean of all sentiments narrow, A pebble will mark his respect for the stark Stiff body that's under the barrow. Thus stone upon stone by reviewers thrown, Will make my celebrity deathless. O I wish I could think, as I gaze at my ink, They'd wait till my carcass is breathless. MAD O ye who push and fight To hear a wanton sing Who utter the delight That has the bogus ring, O men mature in years, In understanding young, The membranes of whose ears She tickles with her tongue, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 69 O wives and daughters sweet, Who call it love of art To kiss a woman's feet That crush a woman's heart, O prudent dams and sires, Your docile young who bring To see how man admires A sinner if she sing O husbands who impart To each assenting spouse The lesson that shall start The buds upon your brows, All whose applauding hands Assist to rear the flame That throws o'er all the lands The shadow of its shame, Go drag her car! the mud Through which its axle rolls Is partly human blood And partly human souls. Mad, mad! your senses whirl Like devils dancing free 70 THE COLLECTED WORKS Because a strolling girl Can hold the note high CL For this the avenging rod Of Heaven ye dare defy, And tear the law that God Thundered from Sinai! FOR COERCION OF COLOMBIA " The ships steam south From the harbor mouth In warlike, grim array! They load the seas, And on every breeze I hear the brass bands play As the squadrons steer away. "From each foreign shore They are coming o'er The oceans big and small, With cheering crews And churning screws, And guns and shot and all, And Admirals that appal! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 71 " In tropical seas They are thick as bees. Oh, ne'er on the Trojan strand Was gathered a fleet So hard to beat As sails to that southern land. 'Tis terribly, terribly grand! " O sailorman stout, What's it all about? If you happen to know tell me. That the foe has no chance His troops to advance To the field we all agree, And the devil a ship has he." He shifted his quid, The sailorman did, To the starboard side of his face. His trousers he hitched As he rolled and pitched, Maintaining his dubious place With a certain maritime grace. H.e looked at the sky With a studious eye, And this singular yarn he spun : 72 THE COLLECTED WORKS " When the wind's sou'west Every man's possessed Of a devil! no son-of-a-gun Can tell what's fit to be done." Perhaps it was naught But a sailorman's thought, But I said to myself: "I'm blest If I can't mark down A man of renown Who is living in mental unrest Where the wind is forever sou'west." A TEAGOING ADMIRAL Once the Queen of Nether China (So benign a Messalina!) Said: " I'll make a Naval Hero Without fear O brave as Nero! He shall dominate the ocean By promotion, that's my notion. All my other sons of thunder Then shall plunder vainly under This Incomparable Person, Interspersin' lively cursin' With their futile strife to shiver Every river-pirate's liver, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 73 And to ascertain the measure Of his treasure at their leisure. For I'll so arrange the looting And the shooting and the hooting, And the making frightful faces (These grimaces are the bases Of our tactics) that they never, Howsoever brave and clever, Shall have any kind of inning In the skinning now beginning. And I'll see that in the story Of the gory game of glory The historian shall slight 'em Or indict 'em maybe bite 'em. But the Hero of my making, Whom I'm aching to be waking Into visible existence, He shall distance these Philistines. Fame's loud trumpet he shall hear it. Blown with spirit in his ear, it Shall extol his birth and breeding, His exceeding knack at leading In a sanguinary sea fight, Or a tea fight, or a flea fight, Till he burst with admiration Of his station in the nation! Then while all the people mock him, I'll unfrock him! That will shock him." 74 THE COLLECTED WORKS Thus the Queen of Nether China, The Regina Mun-Kee-Shina, Made to Naval Evolution A Confucian contribution. 1898. THE WOOER In Ballybazoo the young men woo With the irresistible hob-nail shoe; But in Ghargharoo lived a maiden who Was pleased to remark that it wouldn't do. From Ghargharoo to Ballybazoo This sternly dissenting maiden (who, Etc.) went to reside a lass With a cheek of steel and a brow of brass. Then all the young men of Ballybazoo Took turns in calling early to woo (With the irresistible hob-nail shoe) The beautiful maiden from Ghargharoo. As each fond lover with ardor threw His heel in her upturned face there flew A rain of sparks that consumed his eyes, Affecting his mind with a great surprise. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 75 When all the young men had renounced their sight, The metal-faced maiden she sat upright, Remarking: "There's nothing here to do A dull, dull village is Ballybazoo." From Ballybazoo to Ghargharoo The cheek-whole maiden her armament drew, And her playmate lovers raised a hurroo That saddened the sightless in Ballybazoo. A stranger there was who cherished a heel Of double-case-hardened, cold-rolled chrome steel! And taking thought he decided to woo, As 'twas his undoubted right to do. To display his charms he removed his shoe, And boarding her visage, began to woo. And there in the gloaming, and not in vain, The old, old story was told again. It was long ago in the sainted past, But traits long latent crop out at last; And I know a live newspaper fellow who Has ancestors buried in Ghargharoo. 76 THE COLLECTED WORKS SILHOUETTES OF ORIENTALS The Sultan is a Muscleman ; He's full of vim and whack, And if you want a tussle man His back. Because he's a Mahometan, They think him mighty slow. He's quicker than a comet an Auto! He doesn't often waste a fit, But throws it where 'twill tell. Blood ? Yes, he likes the taste of it Right well. That angel, the Bulgarian, Is just a bird of pray. His soul's as white as Parian, They say. His halo fits him pleasantly And he has two great wings. He tunes his harp, and presently He sings: OF AMBROSE BIERCE 77 " My shoulder inoffensively Bears this dear little chip. Pass on, wayfarer, pensively Don't flip." The thoughtful Moslem pins the chip Fast with a dagger. Oh, That angel-person's sins of lip Are low! The Armenian is a sassy cur, Cantankerous to boot, Nor draws the line at massacre And loot. But when the Kurd in revelry Slays, burns, imprisons, fines, That bad gent to the devil he Consigns. My muse cannot exemplify The Macedonian she Refuses to attempt to fly So free. Old Philip, King of Macedon, Is many ages dead; 78 THE COLLECTED WORKS We have this little gassy don Instead. Is he a Unitarian, A Moslem, Buddhist, Jew Or just a gowned barbarian With trousers on his Mary Ann? Don't know do you? LAND OF THE PILGRIMS' PRIDE I dreamed, and in my dream came one who said : " Because thou art all sullen ; and because Thou sayest thou hast not for thy country, love; Because thou dost begrudge the foolish blood That in the far heroic days thou didst (Or sayst thou didst) pour from thy riven vein In testimony to thy patriot zeal ; Because thou seekest ever to promote Distrust of the benign and wholesome rule Of the Majority God's Ministers; Because thou hearest in the People's voice Naught but the mandate of an idiot will Clamoring in the wilderness, but what Or why it knoweth not; because all this And much beside is true, I come " OF AMBROSE BIERCE 79 " Forbear," I cried, " to name thine errand all Too well I know it for the sword, the scales, The shrouded eyes (albeit methinks I catch A twinkle now and then beneath the band) Speak to my conscience of a traitor's doom! Strike, then, but hear. To westward, roaring up From far beyond the earth's vast curvature, Come sounds of discord horrible the jar And thunder of exploding bombs; The crackle of the flames that eat away The means of life of those who kindle them ; The shouts and curses of the robber mob, Drunk with a sense of numbers like the wolves, Numerically brave on ravin bent And murder! Hear the moans of honest men, With shameful by-name vilified, denied The right to earn their bread, and with a blind, Mad cruelty the devil would weep to see, Beaten and tortured, even by the hands Of the barbarian's female and his whelps! Meanwhile the coward rulers of the land Prate of ' the People's wrongs.' The coward press (Thrifty withal to purse a double gain By two-faced flattery) prates like a fool Of the conservative and saving strength Of Anglo-Saxon institutions, or With magic words, as ' freedom,' and the like, Would conjure order from inharmony. 80 THE COLLECTED WORKS The land is foul with crime, and none declares Our shame and downfall. Even the women rise And seeing the rack and ruin men have wrought, Strip their weak bodies with a silly zeal Something to save from the chaotic wreck; And in the reek and sweat of their absurd And awkward efforts, lose even what remained Their own morality and men's respect. Therefore I say to you " " Nay say no more," Cried she who came into my dream, " for thou Dost wander. What, pray, has all this to do With what thou'rt charged with? that thou dost not love Such as it is thy country ? " Faith, I would, But 'tis infested by my countrymen ! " What she replied I know not, for a bomb, Spitting and sputtering on my chamber floor, Awoke me and I fled into the night. A SINGLE TERMER When Senator Foraker came to die His features lit up with a glow, And he said : " I am going to dwell on high And the Democrats down below. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 81 " I have kept the faith, I have fought the fight, To the Trusts forever true. With Elkins to lead, I have followed the light Saint Peter, it's up to you." Said Peter : " We strive to please in vain ; Many a soul coming here Escapes to earth to be born again And resume the old career." Here he opened the gate. " Although, no doubt, This fellow's a son of sin, The devil himself can't keep him out, But I'll lock the fine gentleman in." A PLAGUE OF ASSES Alas, we've fallen upon an evil time, Our journals are all in a rash of rhyme. Slang, " dialect," the humor of the slum, Done into stanzas by the rule of thumb, The peasant word, the coarse, colloquial phrase, Fitting the pauper thought that it conveys, March to the meter-master's " hep, hep, hep," With every second soldier out of step. What sins of ours deserve this heavy curse? Who taught our clowns 'tis easy to write verse 82 THE COLLECTED WORKS If neither poetry nor wit be deemed A needful ornament, nor sense esteemed A twin of sound ? O rustics of the quill, Ill-made by Nature, making others ill, (Landlubbers on the sea of song a-sail Uttering your fancies o'er the leeward rail) Forgive the wicked wish I cannot choose But entertain that, luckless, you may lose Each one a thumb of the tormenting ten Whereon you reckon syllables. Ah, then, Restored to what it was before you learned That grinning through horse-collars ever earned Plaudits of rustics and enough of dollars To pay the weekly rental of the collars, With something over for the stomach's throes, Your ailing verse will turn to ailing prose. Then joyous angels will look down and say: " Behold ! the ninety-nine that went astray Return to where, from fields of noxious grass, Sweet thistles beckon each repenting ass." IN CUBA Our Administration Had made a new nation As new as a nation could be. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 83 A raven was flapping Above it and snapping His beak with a manifest glee. " O raven, what is it you see That causes the manifest glee? " You can't be designing A programme of dining On anything living and free. You're famous for dinners That plain-speaking sinners Condemn with the Terrible D! (The word is abhorrent to me That begins with the Terrible D.) " Come down from your airy Position and tarry Awhile on this cocoanut tree, And tell me what joying You find in annoying A nation so young and so free Not dead in the slightest degree, But lively and healthy as we." The raven, complying, Said, solemnly eying My edible parts from the tree: 84 THE COLLECTED WORKS " It isn't to nations I look for my rations To any extent or degree. They don't fill the hollow in me To an appreciable degree. " Yet the seasons ensuing Will see something doing To heighten my manifest glee. 'Tis soldiers that mostly Appeal to my ghostly Unusual appetite, see? They're easy digesting to me With my singular appetite, see?" Then I hammered my forehead To think of that horrid Old bird with his appetite free, A-sitting there, lacking Compassion and cracking His beak, on a cocoanut tree, As if merely saying to me: "Oh, what a fine cocoanut tree." I said somewhat later: "Our Administrator Of Freedom's estate, O see! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 85 His Administration Presents us a ' nation ' That's spelled with the Terrible D! And ' nation ' is hateful to me When led by the Terrible D." FOR A CERTAIN CRITIC Let lowly theme engage my humble pen Stupidities of critics, not of men. Be it mine once more the maunderings to trace Of the expounders' self-directed race Their wire-drawn fancies, finically fine, Of diligent vacuity the sign. Let them in jargon of their trade rehearse The moral meaning of the random verse That runs spontaneous from the poet's pen To be half-blotted by ambitious men Who hope with his their meaner names to link By writing o'er it in another ink The thoughts unreal which they think they think, Until the mental eye in vain inspects The hateful palimpsest to find the text. The lark, ascending heavenward, loud and long Sings to the dawning day his wanton song. 86 THE COLLECTED WORKS The moaning dove, attentive to the sound, Its hidden meaning hastens to expound: Explains its principles, design in brief, Pronounces it a parable of grief ! The bee, just pausing ere he daubs his thigh With pollen from a hollyhock near by, Declares he never heard in terms so just The labor problem thoughtfully discussed! The browsing ass looks up and clears his whistle To say: "A monologue upon the thistle!" Meanwhile the lark, descending, folds his wing And innocently asks: "What! did I sing?" O literary parasites! who thrive Upon the fame of better men, derive Your sustenance by suction, like a leech, And, for you preach of them, think masters preach,- Who find it half is profit, half delight, To write about what you could never write, Consider, pray, how sharp had been the throes Of famine and discomfiture in those You write of if they had been critics, too, And doomed to write of nothing but of you! Lo! where the gaping crowd throngs yonder tent, To see the lion resolutely bent! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 87 The prosing showman who the beast displays Grows rich and richer daily in its praise. But how if, to attract the curious yeoman, The lion owned the show and showed the showman? ARTHUR McEWEN Posterity with all its eyes Will come and view him where he lies. Then, turning from the scene away With a concerted shrug, will say: " H'm, Scarbeeus Sisyphus What interest has that to us? We can't admire at all, at all, A tumble-bug without its ball.*' And then a sage will rise and say: "Good friends, you err turn back, I pray: This freak that you unwisely shun Is bug and ball rolled into one." CHARLES AND PETER Ere Gabriel's note to silence died All graves of men were gaping wide. Then Charles A. Dana, of The Sun Rose slowly from the deepest one. 88 THE COLLECTED WORKS " The dead in Christ rise first, 'tis writ," Quoth he "ick, bick, ban, doe, I'm It!" (His headstone, footstone, counted slow, Were " ick " and " bick," he " ban " and " doe ": Of beating Nick the subtle art Was part of his immortal part.) Then straight to Heaven he took his flight, Arriving at the Gates of Light. There Warden Peter, in the throes Of sleep, lay roaring in the nose. " Get up, you sluggard ! " Dana cried " I've an engagement there inside." The Saint arose and scratched his head. " I recollect your face," he said, "(And, pardon me, 'tis rather hard) r But " Dana handed him a card. "Ah, yes, I now remember bless My soul, how dull I am! yes, yes, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 89 "Walk in. But I must tell you this: We've nothing better here than bliss. "We've rest and comfort, though, and peace." " H'm puddles," Dana said, " for geese. " Have you in Heaven no Hell? " " Why no," Said Peter, " nor, in truth, below. ' 'Tis not included in our scheme 'Tis but a preacher's idle dream." The great man slowly moved away. " I'll call," he said, " another 'day. " On earth I played it, o'er and o'er, And Heaven without it were a bore." "O, stuff! come in. You'll make," said Pete, "A Hell where'er you set your feet." CONTEMPLATION I muse upon the distant town In many a dreamy mood. Above my head the sunbeams crown The graveyard's giant rood. 90 THE COLLECTED WORKS The lupin blooms among the tombs, The quail recalls her brood. Ah, good it is to sit and trace The shadow of the cross; It moves so still from place to place O'er marble, bronze and moss; With graves to mark upon its arc Our time's eternal loss. And sweet it is to watch the bee That revels in the roses, And sense the fragrance floating free On every breeze that dozes Upon the mound, where, safe and sound, Mine enemy reposes. THE GOLDEN AGE Long ago the world was finer Why it failed I do not know: All the virtues were diviner; Robber, miser, and maligner Had not been created. No, Truth and honor flourished, though, Long ago. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 91 Sages in procession stalking Moved majestic to and fro, And each lowly mortal walking In their shadow stilled his talking, Heeding the sonorous flow Of their wisdom, loud or low, Long ago. Angel Woman, younger, fairer Far than she that now we know, Gave men meeting with a rarer Grace. No graybeard cried, " Beware her Tongue and temper! " She was slow To wrath. I tell you that was so, Long ago. Ah, the miracle of morning, Setting all the world aglow Like a smile of light adorning God's own face, held no forewarning Of the tempest that would blow Sign and prophecy of woe, Long ago. Hope from every hilltop beckoned To the happy throngs below; And they confidently reckoned 92 THE COLLECTED WORKS On a hero every second. Best of all that goodly show, I was but a laddie O, So long ago! " The world is young, perverse, and bad, The virtues all are wanting; The gods are dead and men are mad And wickedness is haunting The human heart, an honored guest, As robbers of the night infest A wayside inn in Camilhad. " Hate walks the earth all unafraid, And neighbor murders neighbor; Greed draws on Greed the battle-blade, And Labor strangles Labor. The widow and the orphan cry For bread while benefactors ply Unlashed by law, their dreadful trade. " King, president, and patriot Serve their accurst ambition; The soldier and the sans-culottes, The priest and politician, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 93 Are blowing with impested breath The coals of war that sparkle death. Peace, righteousness, and love are not. " But I shall live to see the day Whose golden dawn is breaking! The reign of war no more shall lay Our dust, nor hearts be aching. Lo! all mankind in brotherhood Shall study only to be good, And fling the sword of self away ! " So chante'd one inspired and fain His message to deliver To men who toiled upon the plain And bled along the river, And all the world was foul with crime! This prophet lived about the time That Lamech's wife bare Tubal-cain. AN UNREFORMABLE REFORMER I know not how they come about These alterations in our spelling, But sometimes am disposed to doubt The efficacy of compelling 94 THE COLLECTED WORKS (As still is done to one in school By threatening to whack or twist him) Observance of an iron rule Despite one's better private system. For when the sinner's freed from fear He spells, as formerly, by ear. That's what I have observed, but much By that, I fear, is not decided Against the iron hand (whose touch May none experience, as I did) For under this White House regime Condemning every silent letter, This is the motto, it would seem: " Who spells by ear spells all the better." If that is what these pranks entail, Executive Compulsion, hail! God grant I know not envy nor, When chatting over cup and saucer, Betray my secret hunger for The high renown of Geoffrey Chaucer. Yet now at last I seem to see My way to equal approbation : When I'm as hard to read as he Phonetes of that far generation Will study me and say : " How grand ! So difficult to understand ! " OF AMBROSE BIERCE 95 The President, the President! How enterprising in revision Of Nature's laws! how diligent In cutting out a court decision! How sedulous the stars to woo And keep the seasons rightly going! Ah r seldom we remember who Establishes the time of sowing And reaping, makes the harvest good, And a great man of Leonard Wood. This world is variously bad, And mad as hares in January ('Tis later that the hares are mad, But similes and seasons vary) And Presidents have much to do To keep the March of Mind a-walking, To level up the birth rate, to Pain William Chandler all by talking. O Father Adam, how you must Rejoice that both your ears are dust! THE WORD-WAY IN PANAMA I dreamed I sailed along a tropic shore, The Line behind me and the Star before. A savage coast, it was, of wood and fen, And monkeys gabbled there, instead of men. 96 THE COLLECTED WORKS Once, as the blessed sun his head upraised, On what a wondrous spectacle he gazed! A mile away upon the starboard beam Fell into ocean a deep sluggish stream, Yet not a drop of water passed its mouth Thy way, Kentucky, glory of the South ! Words, words alone it " uttered to the day," As if from Kansas it had gone astray. Yea, disemboguing grandly on the beach, Flowed thickly, viscidly, the parts of speech! Some, by their dead, incalculable weight Held to the bottom of that turbid strait, Slid seaward fathoms deep, nor saw the light That shone above their everlasting night! Some, such their levity, remained atop, Frolicked and flashed did everything but stop. Others, too grave to float, too light to sink, Forever rolled and tumbled on the brink Spread north and south along the cumbered strand, And babbled ever between sea and land. Ah! 'twas a famous spectacle indeed, This wordy welter! verbs that disagreed With nominatives; prepositions all Too weak to hold the objective case in thrall; Adverbs and adjectives disparted quite From parent-words and in a woful plight 97 Of orphanage; conjunctions, interjections With truly anarchistic predilections; And pronouns which a gutter-blooded swarm! Denied their antecedents in their form ! Greatly I marveled whence this language came No " well of English " like it could I name, Nor think how such a stream, however free Its flow, could wear a channel to the sea! As Hudson bears his never-failing fleet Of dead dogs, verdant, poddy and unsweet, To pile themselves upon the Jersey shore, Or in Sargasso's Sea rest evermore, So poured this torrent through its delta's breaches, And all these parts of speech were parts of speeches !- All gushing from that word-way like a flood Of swearing tomcats militant in mud! They leapt, they smelled, they clamored, like a line Of pagans faring to a sacred shrine! " No more my heart the dismal din sustained " (See Homer Pope's translation) for it strained My senses this uncouth, infragrant, hoarse " Fine flow of language " from its Northern source. Cold drops of terror from my body broke! I 'bouted ship, and from my dream awoke. 1902. 98 THE COLLECTED WORKS THE JACK OF CLUBS Jerome, you are a mighty famous man District Attorney, I believe they call you. Some shout your praise as loudly as they can, And some, apparently, just live to maul you. But whether good or ill repute befall you, Your critics can't deny that, as a rule, You take it standing though the wits among Them say you stand, as does the singing mule, The better to perform your feats of lung. And, truly from the dawning to the gloaming, When in good voice, you're usually Jeroming. O, well, we must have music 'tis a need, Like Ibsen, Shaw or the " Edenic diet " ; Though sometimes silence is desired indeed, There's much that may be said in praise of quiet, And possibly you might do worse than try it. Twere better, anyhow, than fool advice To the police to club their fellow men, Too sore already. Sir, it is not nice To free your snouty virtues from the pen Unless, as once in Gadara, they'll scamper Down a steep place to where 'tis greatly damper. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 99 Jerome, the best of us are those who care To hide from view the monsters that inhabit Our hearts, and when too closely questioned swear We've nothing fiercer than a sheep or rabbit. Seeing an opportunity, you grab it And lifting up the curtain, show the whole Menagerie of thoughts and feelings which Infest the secret places of your soul Like newts and water-puppies in a ditch. O, great reformer! hide from observation The unpleasing spectacle of Reformation. 1905. A NAVAL METHOD Captain Purvis, for aught we know, Never slew a Filipino; Played exceeding well at polo, But invited not the bolo. Though his form was big and burly, And his fist was hard and knurly, And his cocktail hour came early, Yet he was devoid of thirst For the blood of the accurst, Inconsiderate Tagallo (Seas of gore, however shallow, 100 THE COLLECTED WORKS He regarded very lightly, As inutile and unsightly) ; So he did not much frequent That insurrectionary gent. Captain Purvis went a-scouting (Truth to tell, he took an outing) Found a Filipino sleeping, Bound and took him into keeping. Calling Sergeant-Major Gump, They conveyed him to a pump, Laid him on his back beneath, With his tongue between his teeth. Said the captain : " We'll not thump him, But he is a spy we'll pump him. That's our duty; information, Secrets useful to the nation, We'll wring from him. Tell me, sir, Tell me truly, why a cur Wags its tail and, furthermore, When a door is not a door." But that person obstinacious Answered, with a look ungracious, That he'd see them ('he was witty) Both in Helfurst that's a city OF AMBROSE BIERCE 101 In Silesia, I suppose, Where no proper person goes. So they pumped him full of water Son of Temperance, or Daughter, Ne'er was half so full as that, Nor any poison-fevered rat Trying with a fervor frantic To abolish the Atlantic. Yes, that Filipino bloated Till his snowy liver floated Like a lily on a pond. And his soul to the Beyond Drifted on the strong, full tide, " By word of mouth," from his inside. Captain Purvis being duly Tried, the President said : " Truly, He's a water-warrior; he Would more fitly serve at sea." So the Navy broke his fall Rearest- Admiral of all! By his ironclad desk he's sitting, Sometimes writing, sometimes knitting, For he's Chief (and that's enough) Of the Bureau of Plum Duff. 1902. George Dewey, dear, I did not think that you So very married and so happy, too Would go philandering with another girl And give your gay mustache a fetching curl And set your cap I should say your cocked hat At Miss Columbia the like o' that. Pray what can you expect to get by throwing Sheep's eyes at one so very, very knowing? See how she served McKinley! All his life He wooed her for his morganatic wife, Swore that he loved her better than his soul (I'm half inclined to think, upon the whole, She better did deserve his love) then vowed He'd marry her alive, or even aloud! What did she? Ere his breath he could recover She heartlessly accepted that poor lover! There's William Bryan of the silver tongue, Old in ambition, in discretion young He courts her with the song, the dance, the lute, But knows how suitors feel who do not suit. And Teddy Roosevelt, plucking from its sheath The weapon that he wears behind his teeth, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 103 Endeavors in his simple, soldier fashion, But all in vain, to touch her heart by slashin'. Beware, my web-foot friend, beware her wiles: Fly from her sighs and disregard her smiles. She's no fool mermaid with a comb and glass, But Satan's daughter with a breast of brass. Put out your prow to sea again but hold ! If Bryan and McKinley, all too bold, Show up along the beach with little Teddy Well, Dewey, you may fire when you are ready. April, 1900. A LEARNER I do not think you rightly understand: My foolish tongue imperfectly has caught The trick of loving words, nor, as it ought, Serves the sweet purpose of the heart's command. Dear, I'm untraveled in the golden land Of love, and in its language all untaught, Like some poor mariner by tempest brought 'Mongst alien races to a foreign strand. So, pretty native, bear with me until My simple wants I rightly can avow 104 THE COLLECTED WORKS My will to serve you with my men and ships. For lo! already I've some little skill In the strange tongue. Ask me to kiss you now I'll read the riddle ere it leaves your lips! TO BRIDGET Have ye heard what the news is, me darlint? The Fenians have threatened the Pope! But, begorra, I think there's a snarl in't That's twisted it up like a rope, From a kink in the telescope. For the news, ye must know, Biddy, reaches This counthry by means of a wire; And sometimes the heat o' the speeches Just warrups it up like a fire. Faith! who but the Divil would bother The likes o' the Howly Father? And the Divil is in it, I'm fearin', When a gintleman's called on to chuse Betwixt Howly Church and Ould Erin The shamrock and harp to refuse, Or be like the murtherin' Jews. Och! Biddy, me mind it is troublin' To know where me body's at home OF AMBROSE BIERCE 105 With half o' me sowl there in Dublin And t'other half over in Rome! Bedad, there's a shplit in the party Of the name of O'Malley McCarty! AFTER TENNYSON You ask me why, though ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Where honor's dead, and law is hissed, And all men pillage as they please. It is the land where freemen kill In warm debate their party foes; The land where judges come to blows And speak the things that make us ill; A land of base expedient; A land where gold can justice drown ; Where Freedom's chains are handed down From President to President; Where factions wrangle for the bread Of honest men; where, fearing naught, 106 THE COLLECTED WORKS Accurst monopolies have caught The people in the nets they spread ; Where branded convicts execute The laws that in a better time They broke, and every kind of crime Stalks unashamed and resolute. Should honor e'er possess the land, And patriots control the State, And Justice rise, divine with hate, To choke the politician band, O waft me from the harbor forth, Wild winds. I'll see Alaska's sky. Here 'twill have grown too warm, and I Will run for office in the North. TO MY BIRD If I were screaming in a cage, Parrot mine, parrot mine, And you were rhyming on this page, Parrot mine, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 107 I'd try to shriek a fresher bit Of wisdom to excite your wit, Parrot mine. All you have said is nothing new, Parrot mine, parrot mine, By Jove, I taught it all to you, Parrot mine. While you nor can, nor could, nor might Have thought what I could care to write, Parrot mine. Your life in order to maintain, Parrot mine, parrot mine, You daily dine upon my brain, Parrot mine. My mind, a torn and mangled wreck, Is disappearing down your neck, Parrot mine. Well, be it so: present your bill, Parrot mine, parrot mine, And on my virtues feast your fill, Parrot mine. My vices, though, will disagree With you, my pet. They do with me, Parrot mine. 108 THE COLLECTED WORKS BUSINESS Two villains of the highest rank Set out one night to rob a bank. They found the building, looked it o'er, Each window noted, tried each door, Scanned carefully the lidded hole For minstrels to cascade the coal In short, examined five-and-twenty Short cuts from poverty to plenty. But all were sealed, they saw full soon, Against the minions of the moon. "Enough," said one: "I'm satisfied." The other, smiling fair and wide, Said: "I'm as highly pleased as you: No burglar ever can get through. Fate surely prospers our design The booty all is yours and mine." So, full of hope, the following day To the exchange they took their way And bought, with manner free and frank, Some stock of that devoted bank; And they became, inside the year, One President and one Cashier. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 109 Their crime I can no further trace The means of safety to embrace, I overdrew and left the place. A POSSIBILITY If the wicked gods were willing (Pray it never may be true!) That a universal chilling Should ensue Of the sentiment of loving, If they made a great undoing Of the plan of turtle-doving, Then farewell all poet-lore, Evermore. If there were no more of billing There would be no more of cooing And we all should be but owls Lonely fowls Blinking wonderfully wise, With our great round eyes Sitting singly in the gloaming and no longer two and two, As unwilling to be wedded as unpracticed how to woo; 110 THE COLLECTED WORKS With regard to being mated, Asking still with aggravated Ungrammatical acerbity: "To who? To who?" TO A CENSOR The delay granted by the weakness and good nature of our judges is responsible for half the murders. Dally Newspaper. Delay responsible? Why, then, my friend, Impeach Delay and you will make an end. Thrust vile Delay in jail and let it rot For doing all the things that it should not. Put not good-natured judges under bond, But make Delay in damages respond. Minos, /Eacus, Rhadamanthus, rolled Into one pitiless, unsmiling scold Unsparing censor, be your thongs uncurled To " lash the rascals naked through the world." The rascals? Nay, Rascality's the thing Above whose back your knotted scourges sing. Your satire, truly, like a razor keen, " Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen ; " For naught that you assail with falchion free Has either nerves to feel or eyes to see. Against abstractions evermore you charge: You hack no helmet and you need no targe. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 111 That wickedness is wrong and sin a vice, That wrong's not right, nor foulness ever nice, Fearless affirm. All consequences dare: Smite the offense and the offender spare. When Ananias and Sapphira lied Falsehood, had you been there, had surely died. When money-changers in the Temple sat, At money-changing you'd have whirled the " cat " (That John-the-Baptist of the modern pen) And all those brokers would have cried amen! Good friend, if any judge deserve your blame Have you no courage, or has he no name? Upon his method will you wreak your wrath, Himself all unmolested in his path? Fall to! fall to! your club no longer draw To beat the air or flail a man of straw. Scorn to do justice like the Saxon thrall Who cuffed the offender's shadow on a wall. Let rascals in the flesh attest your zeal Knocked on the mazzard or tripped up at heel! We know that judges are corrupt. We know That crimes are lively and that laws are slow. We know that lawyers lie and doctors slay; That priests and preachers are but birds of pray; 112 THE COLLECTED WORKS That merchants cheat and journalists for gold Flatter the vicious while at vice they scold. 'Tis all familiar as the simple lore That two policemen and two thieves make four. But since, while some are wicked some are good, (As trees may differ though they all are wood) Names here and there, to show whose head is hit, The bad would sentence and the good acquit. In sparing everybody none you spare: Rebukes most personal are least unfair. To fire at random if you still prefer. And swear at Dog but never kick a cur, Permit me yet one ultimate appeal To something that you understand and feel: Let thrift and vanity your heart persuade You might be read if you would learn your trade. Good brother censors (you have doubtless guessed Not one of you but all are here addressed) Remember this: the shaft that seeks a heart Draws all eyes after it; an idle dart Shot at some shadow flutters o'er the green, Its flight unheeded and its fall unseen. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 113 "THE WHOLE WORLD KIN" " Liars for witnesses ; for lawyers Brutes Willing to lose their souls to win their suits; Cowards for jurors, and for judge a clown Who ne'er took up the law, yet lays it down; Justice denied, authority abused, And the one blameless person the accused Thy courts, my country, all these dreadful years, Move fools to laughter and the wise to tears." So moaned an alien from beyond the foam. Come here, my lad, I think you'll feel at home. A FUTURE CONVERSATION If the coal strike is not settled satisfactorily I shall lead the wives of the miners in a march on Washington. Mother Jones. " What is this I see, what is this I see In this year of our Lord 3003? What ruins are spread in confusion wide Over hill and plain by Potomac's side?" "These, traveler, these are the leveled stones Attesting the prowess of Mother Jones." 114 THE COLLECTED WORKS " O plowman, I never in history grew To the high attainments of Smith Carew, Whose noble book, ' The Decline and Fall Of America,' holds the respect of all. Of Mother Jones I often have heard, But thought pray pardon if I have erred That the ancient lady became renowned By embroidering cats on a velvet ground." "Your error is wide, remote, extreme: Not the needle's shine, but the sabre's, gleam Delighted of old her heroic soul And made her unloved of the Lords of Coal. In that distant day when the miner ' rose,' And to spite his countenance severed his nose, And owners permitted each mine of the trust To fill up with water to lay his dust, She marshaled the women, with sabre and gun, And marched with banners on Washington." " I see, I see in these ruins gray Through which you are urging your plowshare gay The work of their hands, slender and white, That plied the pick and the crowbar bright." " The cannon, my friend, but no harm was done, For before the city was overrun OF AMBROSE BIERCE 115 By the warrior-dames of that rebel rout The politicians had cleaned it out, And the stones that about the plain they spread Were served to the poor when they asked for bread." " O affable plowman, I'd fain admire Your tale, but, alas, I'm myself a liar! Besides, I've a better one, which, mayhap, You'd like to be hearing." "Giddap, giddap!" THE HESITATING VETERAN When I was young and full of faith And other fads that youngsters cherish A cry rose as of one that saith With emphasis : " Help or I perish ! " 'Twas heard in all the land, and men The sound were each to each repeating. It made my heart beat faster then Than any heart can now be beating. For the world is old and the world is gray- Grown prudent and, I think, more witty. She's cut her wisdom teeth, they say, And doesn't now go in for Pity. 116 THE COLLECTED WORKS Besides, the melancholy cry Was that of one, 'tis now conceded, Whose plight no one beneath the sky Felt half so poignantly as he did. Moreover, he was black. And yet That sentimental generation With an austere compassion set Its face and faith to the occasion. Then there were hate and strife to spare, And various hard knocks a-plenty; And I ('twas more than my true share, I must confess) took five-and-twenty. That all is over now the reign Of love and trade stills all dissensions, And the clear heavens arch again Above a land of peace and pensions. The black chap at the last we gave Him everything that he had cried for, Though many white chaps in the grave 'Twould puzzle to say what they died for. I hope he's better off I trust That his society and his master's Are worth the price we paid, and must Continue paying, in disasters; OF AMBROSE BIERCE 117 But sometimes doubts press thronging round ('Tis mostly when my hurts are aching) If war for Union was a sound ' And profitable undertaking. 'Tis said they mean to take away The Negro's vote for he's unlettered. 'Tis true he sits in darkness day And night, as formerly, when fettered; But pray observe howe'er he vote To whatsoever party turning, He'll be with gentlemen of note And wealth and consequence and learning. With saints and sages on each side, How could a fool through lack of knowledge, Vote wrong? If learning is no guide Why ought one to have been in college? Son of Day, O Son of Night! What are your preferences made of? 1 know not which of you is right, Nor which to be the more afraid of. The world is old and the world is bad, And creaks and grinds upon its axis; And man's an ape and the gods are mad ! There's nothing sure, not even our taxes. 118 THE COLLECTED WORKS No mortal man can Truth restore, Or say where she is to be sought for. I know what uniform I wore O, that I knew which side I fought for! A YEAR'S " CASUALTIES " Slain as they lay by the secret, slow, Pitiless hand of an unseen foe, Two score thousand old soldiers have crossed The river to join the loved and lost. In the space of a year their spirits fled, Silent and white, to the camp of the dead. One after one they fall asleep And the pension agents awake to weep, And orphaned statesmen are loud in their wail As the souls flit by on the evening gale. O Father of Battles, pray give us release From the horrors of peace, the horrors of peace! TO-DAY I saw a man who knelt in prayer, And heard him say: " I'll lay my inmost spirit bare To-day. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 119 " Lord, for to-morrow and its need I do not pray; Let me upon my neighbor feed' To-day. " Let me my duty duly shirk And run away From any form or phase of work To-day. "From Thy commands exempted still, Let me obey The promptings of my private will To-day. " Let me no word profane, no lie, Unthinking, say If any one is standing by To-day. " My secret sins and vices grave Let none betray; The scoffer's jeers I do not crave To-day. " And if to-day my fortune all Should ebb away 120 THE COLLECTED WORKS Help me on other men's to fall To-day. " So, for to-morrow and its mite I do not pray; Just give me everything in sight To-day." I cried : " Amen ! " He rose and ran Like oil away. I said: "I've seen an honest man To-day." AN ALIBI A famous journalist who long Had told the great unheaded throng Whate'er they thought, by day or night, Was true as Holy Writ, and right, Was caught in well, on second thought, It is enough that he was caught And, thrown into a jail, became The fuel of a public flame. " Fox populi vox Dei" said The jailer. Inxling bent his head OF AMBROSE BIERCE 121 Without remark: that motto good In bold-faced type had always stpod Above the columns where his pen Had rioted in praise of men And all they said provided he Was sure they mostly did agree. Meanwhile a sharp and bitter strife To take, or save, the culprit's life Or liberty (which, I suppose, Was much the same to him) arose Outside. The journal that his pen Adorned denounced his crime but then Its editor in secret tried To have the indictment set aside. The opposition papers swore His father was a rogue before, And all his wife's relations were Like him and similar to her. They begged their readers to subscribe A dollar each to make a bribe That any Judge would feel was large Enough to prove the gravest charge Unless, it might be, the Defense Put up superior evidence. The law's traditional delay Was all too short: the trial day Dawned red and menacing. The Judge Sat on the Bench and wouldn't budge, 122 THE COLLECTED WORKS And all the motions counsel made Could not move him and there he stayed. " The case must now proceed," he said, "While I am just, in heart and head. It happens as, indeed, it ought / Both sides with equal sums have bought My favor: I can try the cause Impartially." (Prolonged applause.) The prisoner was now arraigned And said that he was greatly pained To be suspected he, whose pen Had charged so many other men With crimes and misdemeanors ! " Why," He said, a tear in either eye, " If men who live by crying out ' Stop thief ! ' are not themselves from doubt Of their integrity exempt Let all forego the vain attempt To make a reputation! Sir, I'm innocent, and I demur." Whereat a thousand voices cried That he indubitably lied Fox popull as loudly roared As bull by picadores gored, In his own coin receiving pay To make a Spanish holiday. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 123 The jury twelve good men and true Were then sworn in to see it through^ And each made solemn oath that he As any babe unborn was free From prejudice, opinion, thought, / Respectability, brains aught That could disqualify; and some Explained that they were deaf and dumb. A better twelve, his Honor said, Was rare, except among the dead. The witnesses were called and sworn. The tales they told made angels mourn, And the Good Book they'd kissed became Red with the consciousness of shame. Whenever one of them approached The truth, " That witness wasn't coached, Your Honor ! " cried the lawyers both. " Strike out his testimony," quoth The learned Judge; "this court denies Its ear to stories that surprise. I hold that witnesses exempt From coaching all are in contempt." Both Prosecution and Defense Applauded the judicial sense, And the spectators all averred Such wisdom they had never heard: 'Twas plain the prisoner would be Found guilty in the first degree. 124 THE COLLECTED WORKS Meanwhile that wight's pale cheek confessed The nameless terrors in his breast. He felt remorseful, too, because He wasn't half they said he was. " If I'd been such a rogue," he mused On opportunities unused, " I might have easily become As wealthy as Methusalum." This journalist adorned, alas, The middle, not the Bible, class. With equal skill the lawyers' pleas Attested their divided fees. Each gave the other one the lie, Then helped him frame a sharp reply. Good Lord! it was a bitter fight, And lasted all the day and night. When once or oftener the roar Had silenced the judicial snore The speaker suffered for the sport By fining for contempt of court. Twelve jurors' noses good and true Unceasing sang the trial through, And even vox populi was spent In rattles through a nasal vent. Clerk, bailiff, constables and all Heard Morpheus sound the trumpet call OF AMBROSE BIERCE 125 To arms his arms and all fell in Save counsel for the Man of Sin. That thaumaturgist stood and swayed The wand their faculties obeyed That magic wand, which, like a flame, Leaped, wavered, quivered and became A wonder-worker known among The ignoble vulgar as a Tongue. How long, O Lord, how long my verse Runs on for better or for worse In meter which o'ermasters me, Octosyllabically free ! A meter, which, the poets say, No power of restraint can stay; A hard-mouthed meter, suited well To him who, having naught to tell, Must hold attention as a trout Is held by paying out and out The slender line which else would break Should one attempt the fish to take. Thus tavern guides who've naught to show But some adjacent curio By devious trails their patrons lead And make them think 'tis far indeed. Where was I? While the lawyer talked The rogue took up his feet and walked: 126 THE COLLECTED WORKS While all about him loudly slept, Into the street he calmly stepped. In very truth, the man who thought The people's voice from heaven had caught God's inspiration took a change Of venue it was passing strange! Straight to his editor he went And that ingenious person sent A Negro to impersonate The fugitive. In adequate Disguise he took the vacant place And buried in his arms his face. When all was done the lawyer stopped And silence like a bombshell dropped Upon the court: Judge, jury, all Within that venerable hall (Except the deaf and dumb, indeed, And one or two whom death had freed) Awoke and tried to look as though Slumber was all they did not know. And now that tireless lawyer-man Took breath, and then again began: " Your Honor, if you did attend To what I've urged (my learned friend Nodded concurrence) to support The motion I have made, this court OF AMBROSE BIERCE 127 May soon adjourn. With your assent I've shown abundant precedent For introducing now, though late, New evidence to exculpate My client. So, if you'll allow, I'll prove an alibi!" "What? how?" Stammered the Judge. "Well, yes, I can't Deny your showing, and I grant The motion. Do I understand You undertake to prove good land! That when the crime you mean to show Your client wasn't there? " " O, no, I cannot quite do that, I find: My alibi's another kind Of alibi I'll make it clear, Your Honor, that he isn't here." The Darky here upreared his head, Tranquillity affrighted fled And consternation reigned instead! A MEETING " Good morning," said Garfield, extending his hand, To Mr. Parnell in the Heavenly Land. " Good morning, good morning," said Mr. Parnell ; " I hope (though 'tis needless to ask) you are well. 128 THE COLLECTED WORKS How sweetly that chorus of cherubim sings! Pray how do you manage these cumbersome wings? This halo I dare say I'm terribly green, But somehow I can't make it hold my dudheen. This harp is all right, but the shamrock I miss, And O, by the way, in this region of bliss I trust that the rascally schemer who wrote The Morey epistle, which lost you the vote Electoral, I am not likely to meet ? " Then Garfield, his eyes on the cloud at his feet, Burned in the cheeks with a fervor divine That conquered his halo's inferior shine; Then said, with a look that was level and far: " I fear (to be honest and frank) that you are. The person who wrote that mysterious, queer, Bad letter is here ah, exceedingly here." And he smiled in an infantile sort of a way, Like a man with a qualm, and went on to say: " I'm happy to meet you. What news from below? Did it look when you left there as if they would show Who wrote, with a villainous purpose in view, The peppery letters imputed to you ? " Said Mr. Parnell: "Yes, it did, I must say In fact, that's the reason I hastened away." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 129 Then they sang a psalm, and they sang so well That Murchison heard it whil^e sobbing in Hell. J. F. B. How well this man unfolded to our view The world's beliefs of Death and Heaven and Hell This man whose own convictions none could tell, Nor if his maze of reason had a clew. Dogmas he wrote for daily bread, but knew The fair philosophies of doubt so well That while we listened to his words there fell Some that were strangely comforting if true. Marking how wise we grew upon his doubt, We said : " If so, by groping in the night, He can proclaim some certain paths of trust, How great our profit if he saw about His feet the highways leading to the light." Now he sees all. Ah, Christ! his mouth is dust! THE DYING STATESMAN It is a politician man He draweth near his end, And friends weep round that partisan, Of every man the friend. 130 THE COLLECTED WORKS Between the Known and the Unknown He lieth on the strand; The light upon the sea is thrown That lay upon the land. It shineth in his glazing eye, It burneth on his face; God send that when we come to die We know that sign of grace! Upon his lips his blessed sprite Poiseth her joyous wing. "How is it with thee, child of light? Dost hear the angels sing?" " The song I hear, the crown I see, And know that God is love. Farewell, dark world I go to be A postmaster above ! " For him no monumental arch, But, O, 'tis good and brave To see the Grand Old Party march To office o'er his gravel OF AMBROSE BIERCE 131 THE DEATH OF GRANT Father] whose hard and cruel law Is part of thy compassion's plan, Thy works presumptuously we scan For what the prophets say they saw. Unbidden still the awful slope Walling us in we climb to gain Assurance of the shining plain That faith has certified to hope. In vain! beyond the circling hill The shadow and the cloud abide. Subdue the doubt, our spirits guide To trust the record and be still. To trust it loyally as he Who, heedful of his high design, Ne'er raised a seeking eye to thine, But wrought thy will unconsciously, Disputing not of chance or fate, Nor questioning of cause or creed ; For anything but duty's deed Too simply wise, too humbly great. 132 THE COLLECTED WORKS The cannon syllabled his name; His shadow shifted o'er the land, Portentous, as at his demand Successive bastions sprang to flame! He flared the continent with fire, The rivers ran in lines of light! Thy will be done on earth if right Or wrong he cared not to inquire. His was the heavy hand, and his The service of the despot blade; His the soft answer that allayed War's giant animosities. Let us have peace: our clouded eyes, Fill, Father, with another light, That we may see with clearer sight Thy servant's soul in Paradise. THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED Of Hans Pietro Shanahan (Who was a most ingenious man) The Muse of History records That he'd get drunk as twenty lords. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 133 He'd get so truly drun that men Stood by to marvel at him when His slow advance along the street Was but a vain cycloidal feat. And when 'twas fated that he fall With a wide, geographic sprawl, They signified assent by sounds Heard (faintly) at its utmost bounds. And yet this Mr. Shanahan (Who was a most ingenious man) Cast not on wine his thirsty eyes When it was red or otherwise. All malt or spirituous tope He loathed as cats dissent from soap; And cider, if it touched his lip, Evoked a groan at every sip. But still, as heretofore explained, He not infrequently was grained. (I'm not of those who call it "corned" Coarse speech I've always duly scorned.) Though, truth to say, and that's but right, Strong drink (it hath an adder's bite!) 134 THE COLLECTED WOKKS Was what had put him in the mud, The only kind he used was blood! Alas that an immortal soul Addicted to the flowing bowl The emptied flagon should again Replenish from a neighbor's vein! But, Mr. Shanahan was so Constructed, and his taste that low. Not more deplorable was he In kind of thirst than in degree; For sometimes fifty souls would pay The debt of nature in a day To free him from the shame and pain Of dread Sobriety's misreign. His native land, with a proud sense Of his unique inabstinence, Abated something of its pride At thought of his unfilled inside; And some the boldness had to say 'Twere well if he were called away To slake his thirst for evermore In oceans of celestial gore. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 135 But Hans Pietro Shanahan (Who was a most ingenious man) Knew that his thirst was mortal; so Remained unsainted here below Unsainted and unsaintly, for He neither went to glory nor To abdicate his power deigned Where, under Providence, he reigned, But kept his Boss's power accurst To serve his wild uncommon thirst, Which now had grown so truly great It was a drain upon the State. Soon, soon there came a time, alas! When he turned down an empty glass All practicable means were vain His special wassail to obtain. In vain poor Decimation tried To furnish forth the needful tide; And Civil War as vainly shed Its niggard offering of red. Poor Shanahan! his thirst increased Until he wished himself deceased, 136 THE COLLECTED WORKS Invoked the firearm and the knife, But could not die to save his life! He was so dry his own veins made No answer to the seeking blade; So weak that when he would have passed Away he could not breathe his last. 'Twas then, when almost in despair, (Unlaced his shoon, unkempt his hair) He saw as in a dream a way To wet afresh his mortal clay. Yes, Hans Pietro Shanahan (Who was a most ingenious man) Saw freedom, and with joy and pride "Thalassa! (or Thalatta!)" cried. Straight to the alderman went he, With many a " pull " and many a fee, And many a most corrupt " combine " (The Press for twenty cents a line Held out and fought him O God bless Forevermore the holy Press!) OF AMBROSE BIERCE 137 Till he had franchises complete For trolley lines on every street! The cars were builded and, they say, Were run on rails laid every way Rhomboidal roads, and circular, And oval everywhere a car Square, dodecagonal (in great Esteem the form called Figure 8) And many other kinds of form As different as paths of storm. No other group of men's abodes E'er had so odd electric roads, Which, winding in and winding out, Began and ended all about. No city had, unless in Mars, That city's fatal gift of cars. They ran by day, they flew by night, And O, the sorry, sorry sight! And Hans Pietro Shanahan (Who was a most ingenious man) Incessantly, the Muse records, Lay drunk as twenty thousand lords! 138 THE COLLECTED WORKS LAUS LUCIS Theosophists are about to build a " Temple for the Revival of the Mysteries of Antiquity." Vide the Newspapers, passim. Each to his taste: some men prefer to play At mystery, and others at piquet. Some sit in mystic meditation; some Parade the street with tambourine and drum. One studies to decipher ancient lore Which, proving stuff, he studies all the more; Another swears that learning is but good To darken things already understood, Then writes upon Simplicity so well That none agree on what he wants to tell, And future ages will declare his pen Inspired by gods with messages to men. To found an ancient order, these devote Their time with ritual, regalia, goat, Blankets for tossing, chairs of little ease And all the modern inconveniences; Those, saner, frown upon unmeaning rites And go to church for rational delights. So all are suited, shallow and profound, The prophets prosper and the world goes round. For me unread in the occult, I'm fain To damn all mysteries alike as vain, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 139 Spurn the obscure and base my faith upon The Revelations of the good St. John. NANINE We heard a song-bird trilling 'Twas but a day ago. Such rapture he was rilling As only we could know. This morning he is flinging His music from the tree, But something in the singing Is not the same to me. His inspiration fails him, Or he has lost his skill. Nanine, Nanine, what ails him That he should sing so ill? Nanine is not replying She hears no earthly song. The sun and bird are lying And the night is, O, so long! 140 THE COLLECTED WORKS TECHNOLOGY 'Twas a serious person with locks of gray And a figure like a crescent; His gravity, clearly, had come to stay, But his smile was evanescent. He stood and conversed with a neighbor and With (likewise) a high falsetto; And he stabbed his forefinger into his hand As if it had been a stiletto. His words, like the notes of a tenor drum, Came out of his head unblended, And the wonderful altitude of some Was exceptionally splendid. While executing a shake of the head, With the hand, as it were, of a master, This agonizing old gentleman said: ' 'Twas a truly sad disaster ! " Four hundred and ten longs and shorts in all, Went down " he paused and snuffled. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 141 A single tear was observed to fall, And the old man's drum was muffled. " A very calamitous year," he said, And again his head-piece hoary He shook, and another pearl he shed, As if he wept con amore. " O lacrymose person," I cried, " pray why Should these failures so affect you? With speculators in stocks no eye That's normal would ever connect you." He focused his orbs upon mine and smiled In a sinister sort of manner. "Young man," he said, "your words are wild; I spoke of the steamship ' Hanner.' " For she has went down in a howlin* squall, And my heart is nigh to breakin' Four hundred and ten longs and shorts in all Will never need undertakin'! " I'm in the business myself," said he, "And you've mistook my expression; For I uses the technical terms, you see, Employed in my perfession." 142 THE COLLECTED WORKS That old undertaker has joined the throng On the other side of the River, But I'm still unhappy to think I'm a "long," And a tape-line makes me shiver. A REPLY TO A LETTER O nonsense, parson tell me not they thrive And jubilate who follow your dictation. The good are the unhappiest lot alive I know they are from careful observation. If freedom from the terrors of damnation Lengthens the visage like a telescope, And lacrymosity's a sign of hope, Then I'll continue, in my dreadful plight, To tread the dusky paths of sin, and grope Contentedly without your lantern's light; And though in many a bog beslubbered quite, Refuse to flay me with ecclesiastic soap. You say 'tis a sad world, seeing I'm condemned, With many a million others of my kidney. Each continent's Hammed, Japheted and Shemmed With sinners worldlings like Sir Philip Sidney And scoffers like Voltaire, who thought it bliss To simulate respect for Genesis OF AMBROSE BIERCE 143 Who bent the mental knee as if in prayer, But mocked at Moses underneath his hair, And like an angry gander bowed his head to hiss. Seeing such as these, who die without contrition, Must go to beg your pardon, sir perdition, The sons of light, you tell me, can't be gay, But count it sin of the sort called omission The groan to smother or the tear to stay Or fail to what is that they live by? pray. So down they kneel, and the whole serious race is Put by divine compassion on a praying basis. Well, if you take it so to heart, while yet Our own hearts are so light with nature's leaven, You'll weep indeed when we in Hades sweat, And you look down upon us out of Heaven. In fancy, lo! I see your wailing shades Thronging the crystal battlements. Cascades Of tears spring singing from each golden spout, Run roaring from the verge with hoarser sound, Dash downward through the glimmering pro found, Quench the tormenting flame and put the Devil out! Presumptuous fool! to you no power belongs To pitchfork me to Heaven upon the prongs 144 THE COLLECTED WORKS Of a bad pen, whose disobedient sputter, With less of ink than incoherence fraught, Befits the folly that it tries to utter. Brains, I observe, as well as tongues, can stutter: You suffer from impediment of thought, Save when considering your bread-and-butter. When next you " point the way to Heaven," take care : Your fingers being thumbs, point Heaven knows where ! Farewell, poor dunce! your letter though I blame, Bear witness how my anger I can tame: I've called you everything except your hateful name! TO OSCAR WILDE Because from Folly's lips you got Some babbled mandate to subdue The realm of Common Sense, and you Made promise and considered not, Because you strike a random blow At what you do not understand, And beckon with a friendly hand To something that you do not know, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 145 I hold no speech of your desert, Nor baffle with porrected shield The wooden weapon that you wield, But meet you with a cast of dirt. Dispute with such a thing as you Twin show to the two-headed calf? Why, sir, if I repress my laugh, 'Tis more than half the world can do. 1882. BORN LEADERS OF MEN Tuckerton Tamerlane Morey Mahosh Is a statesman of world-wide fame, With a notable knack at rhetorical bosh To glorify somebody's name Somebody chosen by Tuckerton's masters To succor the country from divers disasters Portentous to Mr. Mahosh. Percy O'Halloran Tarpy Cabee Is in the political swim. He cares not a button for men, not he: Great principles captivate him 146 THE COLLECTED WORKS Principles cleverly cut out and fitted To Percy's capacity, duly admitted And fought for by Mr. Cabee. Drusus Turn Swinnerton Porfer Fitzurse Holds office the most of his life. For men nor for principles cares he a curse But much for his neighbor's wife. The Ship of State leaks, but he doesn't pump any- Messrs. Mahosh, Cabee & Company Pump for good Mr. Fitzurse. THE CRIME OF 1903 Time was, not very long ago, As by historians time is reckoned, When first of virtues here below Was hatred of secession, though Some swore it wasn't even second; But these (they mostly were down South) Have all renounced their view with candor- Some tardily by word of mouth, Some, earlier, in a manner grander. To stamp their error out, 'tis true, We paid enough of blood (the treasure OF AMBROSE BIERCE 147 Would pave with gold an avenue) To float a battleship or two, If so the cost we choose to measure. 'Twas worth it all, we say and say The President has often said it; And so it was to us; and they Say nothing, as a rule, who shed it. " Times change and we change with them," men Of old renown averred in Latin; And that's as true on tongue or pen This blessed century as when The seat of empire Caesar sat in. For see how many play their parts As ardent lovers of secession, Promoting it with all their hearts In countries out of our possession. O men of variable views, How can you be so light and fickle ? Is it because you think the news From Panama portends no bruise To you, nor payment of a nickel? Nay, is it that you scent a gain In troubles of a neighbor nation, And so appraise her loss and pain As nothing worth a valuation? 148 THE COLLECTED WORKS Those ills 'tis easy to endure That light upon and sting another That's Christian fortitude; but sure There's somewhere an account of your Least feeling toward a hapless brother. Himself may show by deed and speech Less racial sympathies than tribal, But well, this is no place to preach; The sermon's mostly in the Bible. We're false to trust and quick to spy The fissure in a friendly armor, Even Freedom can no more rely Upon our promise not to harm her. O Guardian of Continents, My country! shall that evil dower, The passion for preeminence, Cry from thy seaward battlements A soul already drunk with power? 1903. FOR EXPULSION They say, Brig. Roberts, you have seven wives, And every one a beauty! As to that I'm not informed; in the domestic hives Of Utah, where I've sometimes hung my hat, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 149 Not all the dames were comely. Like a cat That has nine lives and must support them all, You have to hustle round a bit, I fancy. Now don't you really agree with Paul That women are the devil? even Nancy And Mary Jane and Caroline and Ella And Ruth and Adeline and Isabella! If I had half as many wives as you (That's three wives and a half as I compute) I hardly know what I'd be driven to. I might in desperation play the flute, Or Congress find in me a raw recruit. Then, I suppose, the country would uprise And say the things I least should care to hear: And virtuous editors would damn my eyes, And cartilaginous virgins pain my ear, And now and then some pious person clamor, Blessed with one wife, ten wenches and no grammar. All that and more you're suffering, my friend, For, having married all the maids you saw, You contumaciously refuse to bend A corrigible back to altered law And leave them (all but one) lamenting. Pshaw! Don't be so squeamish. Yes, the children may Lament a little too when made acquainted 150 THE COLLECTED WORKS With their mischance in being put away, And your own countenance with shame be painted; But that's the smallest price for which we'll sell A seat in Congress and a bed in Hell. JUDEX JOCOSUS We blench when maniacs to dance begin. What makes a skull so dreadful is the grin. When horrible and ludicrous unite, Our sense of humor does but feed our fright. As the shocked spirit with a double dread Might see a monkey watching by the dead, Or headsman part a neck, without a fault, While turning o'er the block a somersault. So, Judge Hilario, the untroubled awe And reverence men cherish for the law Turn all to terror when with wit profound And tricksy humor you the law expound. More frightful sounds the felon's doom by half From lips still twisted to an idiot laugh. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 151 "GRAFT" Cuba, our pupil, let thy glory shine Our own is brighter, but effulgent thine! Lately thine arms struck terror to the foe, And now thy hands bring treasuries to woe! Daughter of Terrors, Mother of Alarms, Courage himself may fly before thine arms; But O, what thing escapes, what thing withstands, The power of those comprehensive hands? THE TALE OF A CRIME Once, in the olden time, a certain King (But where he reigned I know not) said: "Go bring My Chief Adviser here before the throne, And cut his head off clear down to the bone ! " "With pleasure, Sire," said keen to earn his wage The High Dissuader from the Sin of Age; " But kings should still be civil, even when just: You'll charge the villain with some crime, I trust ? " "Why, that's no more than fair," the King replied. They brought the culprit in, securely tied, 152 THE COLLECTED WORKS And the King said : " Let some one who can read Stand forward and unfold the Golden Screed, Bright with the names of all the sins and crimes And vices ever known from ancient times. We'll fit the fellow for the headsman's prank With one appropriate to his face and rank." In drowsy monotone the Lector read The shining list, beginning at the head. (Lese majeste was naturally first Of crimes conceivable, the blackest, worst!) As each was named the prisoner addressed The throne and, as the law compelled, confessed. 'Twas fatal not to: in that olden day Little was heard about the law's delay. But still the royal taste could find for him No crime well suited to the royal whim, And, wearied by the reader's droning voice, The sovereign fell asleep, nor made a choice Snored like an organ till the stones were jarred Distinguishing the palace from the yard. Meantime, the accused continued to confess, Each nod said " guilty " and each look said " yes." And still the monarch slept: each courtier feared To wake him lest himself should " lose his beard." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 153 ('Twas a fine euphemism, and meant his head Some things for prudence are obliquely said.) "Finis," the reader said, and roundabout Fell silence like a loud awakening shout! The startled sovereign left a snore half-snored " That's what the scoundrel's guilty of ! " he roared. So there before the king upon his throne They cut his head off clean down to the bone! And all the devils made a joyous din To celebrate the new and lovely sin. TO THE BARTHOLDI STATUE O Liberty, God-gifted Young and immortal maid In your high hand uplifted, The torch declares your trade. Its crimson menace, flaming Upon the sea and shore, Is, trumpet-like, proclaiming That Law shall be no more. Austere incendiary, We're blinking in the light; 154 THE COLLECTED WORKS Where is your customary Grenade of dynamite? Where are your staves and switches For men of gentle birth? Your mask and dirk for riches? Your chains for wit and worth? Perhaps, you've brought the halters You used in the old days, When round religion's altars You stabled Cromwell's bays? Behind you, unsuspected, Have you the axe, fair wench, Wherewith you once collected A poll-tax from the French? America salutes you Preparing to "disgorge." Take everything that suits you, And marry Henry George. 1894. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 155 AN UNMERRY CHRISTMAS Christmas, you tell me, comes but once a year. One place it never comes, and that is here. Here, in these pages no good wishes spring, No well-worn greetings tediously ring For Christmas greetings are like pots of ore: The hollower they are they ring the more. Here shall no holly cast a spiny shade, Nor mistletoe my solitude invade, No trinket-laden vegetable come, No jorum steam with Sheolate of rum. No shrilling children shall their voices rear. Hurrah for Christmas without Christmas cheer! No presents, if you please I know too well What Herbert Spencer, if he didn't tell (I know not if he did) yet might have told Of present-giving in the days of old, When Early Man with gifts propitiated The chiefs whom most he doubted, feared and hated, Or tendered them in hope to reap some rude Advantage from the taker's gratitude. Since thus the Gift its origin derives (How much of its first character survives 156 THE COLLECTED WORKS You know as well as I) my stocking's tied, My pocket buttoned with my soul inside. I save my money and I save my pride. Dinner? Yes; thank you just a baby's body Done to a nutty brown, and a tear toddy To give me appetite; and as to drink, About a half a jug of blood, I think, Will do; for still I love that good red wine, Coagulating well, with wrinkles fine Fretting the satin surface of its flood. O tope of kings divine Falernian blood! Duse take the shouting fowls upon the limb, The kneeling cattle and the rising hymn ! Has not a pagan rights to be regarded His heart assaulted and his ear bombarded With sentiments and sounds that good old Pan Even in his demonium would ban? No, friends no Christmas here, for I have sworn To keep my heart hard and my knees unworn. Enough you have of jester, player, priest: I as the skeleton attend your feast, In the mad revelry to make a lull With shaken finger and with bobbing skull. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 157 However you my services may flout, Philosophy disdain and reason doubt, I mean to hold in customary state, My dismal revelry and celebrate My yearly rite until the crack o' doom, Ignore the cheerful season's warmth and bloom And cultivate an oasis of gloom. FROM VIRGINIA TO PARIS The polecat, sovereign of its native wood, Dashes damnation upon bad and good; The health of all the upas trees impairs By exhalations deadlier than theirs; Poisons the rattlesnake and warts the toad The creeks go rotten and the rocks corrode! She shakes o'er breathless hill and shrinking dale The horrid aspergillus of her tail! From every saturated hair, till dry, The spargent fragrances divergent fly, Stifle the world and reek along the sky! Removed to alien scenes, amid the strife Of urban odors to ungladden life 158 THE COLLECTED WORKS Where gas and sewers and dead dogs conspire The flesh to torture and the soul to fire Where all the " well defined and several stinks " Known to mankind hold revel and high jinks Humbled in spirit, smitten with a sense Of lost distinction, leveled eminence, Her powers atrophied, her vigor sunk, She lives deodorized, a sweeter skunk. A " MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON " " O, I'm the Unaverage Man, But you never have heard of me, For my brother, the Average Man, outran My fame with rapiditee, And I'm sunk in Oblivion's sea; But my bully big brother the world can span With his wide notorietee. I do everything that I can To make 'em attend to me, But the papers ignore the Unaverage Man With a weird uniformitee." So sang with a dolorous note A voice that I heard from the beach ; OF AMBROSE BIERCE 159 On the sable waters it seemed to float Like a mortal part of speech. The sea was Oblivion's sea, And I cried as I plunged to swim: "The Unaverage Man shall reside with me." But he didn't I stayed with him! THE FREE TRADER'S LAMENT Oft from a trading-boat I purchased spice And shells and corals, brought for my inspection From the fair tropics paid a Christian price And was content in my fool's paradise, Where never had been heard the word " Protection." 'Twas my sole island; there I dwelt alone No customs-house, collector nor collection, But a man came who in a pious tone Condoled with me that I had never known The manifest advantage of Protection. So when the trading-boat arrived one day He threw a stink-pot into its mid-section. The traders paddled for their lives away, Nor came again into that haunted bay, The blessed home thereafter of Protection. 160 THE COLLECTED WORKS Then down he sat, that philanthropic man, And spat upon some mud of his selection, And worked it with his knuckles in a pan To shapes of shells and coral things, and span A thread of song in glory of Protection. He baked them in the sun. His air devout Enchanted me. I made a genuflexion: " God help you, gentle sir," I said. " No doubt," He answered gravely, " I'll get on without Assistance now that we have got Protection." Thenceforth I bought his wares at what a price For shells and corals of such imperfection! " Ah, now," said he, " your lot is truly nice." But still in all that isle there was no spice To season to my taste that dish, Protection. SUBTERRANEAN PHANTASIES I died. As meekly in the earth I lay, With shriveled fingers reverently folded, The worm uncivil engineer! my clay Tunneled industriously, and the mole did. My body could not dodge them, but my soul did ; OF AMBROSE BIERCE 161 For that had flown from this terrestrial ball And I was rid of it for good and all. So there I lay, debating what to do What measures might most usefully be taken To circumvent the subterranean crew Of anthropophagi and save my bacon. My fortitude was all the while unshaken, But any gentleman, of course, protests Against receiving uninvited guests. However proud he might be of his meats, Not even Apicius, nor, I think, Lucullus, Wasted on tramps his culinary sweets; "Aut Casar" say judicious hosts, " aut nullus" And though when Marcius came unbidden Tullus Aufidius feasted him because he starved, Marcius by Tullus afterward was carved. We feed the hungry, as the book commands (For men might question else our orthodoxy) But do not care to see the outstretched hands, And so we minister to them by proxy. When Want, in his improper person, knocks he Finds we're engaged. The graveworm's very fresh To think we like his presence in the flesh. 162 THE COLLECTED WORKS So, as I said, I lay in doubt; in all That underworld no judges could determine My rights. When Death approaches them they fall, And falling, naturally soil their ermine. And still below ground, as above, the vermin That work by dark and silent methods win The case the burial-case that one is in. Cases at law so slowly get ahead, Even when the right is visibly unclouded, That if all men are classed as quick and dead, The judges all are dead, though some unshrouded. Pray Jove that when they're actually crowded On Styx's brink, and Charon rows in sight, His bark prove worse than Cerberus's bite. Ah! Cerberus, if you had but begot A race of three-mouthed dogs for man to nourish And women to caress, the muse had not Lamented the decay of virtues currish, And triple-hydrophobia now would flourish. For barking, biting, kissing to employ Canine repeaters were indeed a joy. Lord! how we cling to this vile world! Here I, Whose dust was laid ere I began this carping, By moles and worms and such familiar fry OF AMBROSE BIERCE 163 Run through and through, am singing still and harp ing Of mundane matters flatting, too, and sharping. I hate the Angel of the Sleeping-Cup: So I'm for getting and for shutting up. IN MEMORIAM Beauty (they called her) wasn't a maid Of many things in the world afraid. She wasn't a maid who turned and fled At sight of a mouse, alive or dead. She wasn't a maid a man could " shoo " By shouting, however abruptly, " Boo ! " She wasn't a maid who'd run and hide If her face and figure you idly eyed. She wasn't a maid who'd blush and shake When asked what part of the fowl she'd take. (I blush myself to confess she preferred, And commonly got, the most of the bird.) She wasn't a maid to simper because She was asked to sing if she ever was. In short, if the truth must be displayed All naked Beauty wasn't a maid. 164 THE COLLECTED WORKS Beauty, furry and fine and fat, Yawny and clawy, sleek and all that, Was a pampered and spoiled Angora cat! I loved her well, and I'm proud that she Wasn't indifferent, quite, to me; In fact I have sometimes gone so far (You know, mesdames, how silly men are) As to think she preferred excuse the conceit My legs upon which to sharpen her feet. Perhaps it shouldn't have counted for much, But I started and thrilled beneath her touch! Ah, well, that's ancient history now: The fingers of Time have touched my brow, And I hear with never a start to-day That Beauty has passed from the earth away. Gone! her death-song (it killed her) sung. Gone! her fiddlestrings all unstrung. Gone to the bliss of a new regime Of turkey smothered in seas of cream; Of roasted mice (a superior breed, To science unknown and the coarser need Of the living cat) cooked by the flame Of the dainty soul of an erring dame Who had given to purity all her care, Neglecting the duty of daily prayer, Crisp, delicate mice, just touched with spice OF AMBROSE BIERCE 165 By the ghost of a breeze from Paradise; A very digestible sort of mice. Let scoffers sneer, I purpose to hold That Beauty has mounted the Stair of Gold, To eat and eat, forever and aye, On a velvet rug from a golden tray. But the human spirit that is my creed Rots in the ground like a barren seed. That is my creed, abhorred by Man But approved by Cat since time began. Till Death shall kick at me, thundering "Scat!" I shall hold to that, I shall hold to that. THE STATESMEN How blest the land that counts among Her sons so many good and wise, To execute great feats of tongue When troubles rise. Behold them mounting every stump, By speech our liberty to guard. Observe their courage see them jump, And come down hard! 166 THE COLLECTED WORKS " Walk up, walk up ! " each cries aloud, "And learn from me what you must do To turn aside the thunder cloud, The earthquake too. " Beware the wiles of yonder quack Who stuffs the ears of all that pass. I I alone can show that black Is white as grass." They shout through all the day and break The silence of the night as well. They'd make I wish they'd go and make- Of Heaven a Hell. A advocates free silver, B Free trade and C free banking laws. Free board, clothes, lodging would from me Win warm applause. La, D lifts up his voice: "You see The single tax on land would fall On all alike." More evenly No tax at all. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 167 "With paper money," bellows E, " We'll all be rich as lords." No doubt And richest of the lot will be The chap without. As many " cures " as addle-wits Who know not what the ailment is ! Meanwhile the patient foams and spits Like a gin fizz. Alas, poor Body Politic, Your fate is all too clearly read: To be not altogether quick, Nor very dead. You take your exercise in squirms, Your rest in fainting fits between. 'Tis plain that your disorder's worms Worms fat and lean. Worm Capital, Worm Labor dwell Within your maw and muscle's scope. Their quarrels make your life a Hell, Your death a hope. God send you find not such an end To ills however sharp and huge! 168 THE COLLECTED WORKS God send you convalesce! God send You vermifuge. BROTHERS SCENE A lawyer's dreadful den. Enter stall-fed citizen. LAWYER. Mornin'. How-de-do ? CITIZEN. Sir, same to you. Called as counsel to retain you In a case that I'll explain you. Sad, so sad! Heart almost broke. Hang it! where's my kerchief? Smoke? Brother, sir, and I, of late, Came into a large estate. Brother's h'm, ha, rather queer Sometimes [tapping forehead] here. What he needs you know a " writ " Something, eh? that will permit Me to manage, sir, in fine, His estate, as well as mine. Of course he'll storm; 'twill break, I fear, His loving heart excuse this tear. LAWYER. Have you nothing more? All of this you said before OF AMBROSE BIERCE 169 When last night I took your case. CITIZEN. Why, sir, your face Ne'er before has met my view! LAWYER. Eh? The devil! True: My mistake it was your brother. But you're very like each other. THE CYNIC'S BEQUEST In that fair city, Ispahan, There dwelt a problematic man, Whose angel never was released, Who never once let out his beast, But kept, through all the seasons' round, Silence unbroken and profound. No Prophecy, with ear applied To key-hole of the future, tried Successfully to catch a hint Of what he'd do nor when begin't; As sternly did his past defy Mild Retrospection's backward eye. Though all admired his silent ways, The women loudest were in praise: For ladies love those men the most Who never, never, never boast 170 THE COLLECTED WORKS Who ne'er disclose their aims and ends To naughty, naughty, naughty friends. Yet, sooth to say, the fame outran The merit of this doubtful man, For taciturnity in him, Though not a mere caprice nor whim, Was not a virtue, such as truth, High birth, or beauty, wealth or youth. 'Twas known, indeed, throughout the span Of Ispahan, of Gulistan These utmost limits of the earth Knew that the man was dumb from birth. Unto the Sun with deep salaams The Parsee spreads his morning palms (A beacon blazing on a height Warms o'er his piety by night.) The Moslem deprecates the deed, Cuts off the head that holds the creed, Then reverently goes to grass, Muttering thanks to Balaam's Ass For faith and learning to refute Idolatry so dissolute! But should a maniac dash past, With straws in beard and hands upcast, To him (through whom, whene'er inclined OF AMBROSE BIERCE 171 To preach a bit to Madmankind, The Holy Prophet speaks his mind) Our True Believer lifts his eyes Devoutly and his prayer applies; But next to Solyman the Great Reveres the idiot's sacred state. Small wonder then, our worthy mute Was held in popular repute. Had he been blind as well as mum, Been lame as well as blind and dumb, No bard that ever sang or soared Could say how he had been adored. More meagerly endowed, he drew An homage less prodigious. True, No soul his praises but did utter All plied him with devotion's butter, But none had out 'twas to their credit The proselyting sword to spread it. I state these truths, exactly why The reader knows as well as I; They've nothing in the world to do With what I hope we're coming to If Pegasus be good enough To move when he has stood enough. Egad! his ribs I would examine Had I a sharper spur than famine, Or even with that if 'twould incline 172 THE COLLECTED WORKS To examine his instead of mine. Where was I? Ah, that silent man Who dwelt one time in Ispahan. He had a name was known to all As Meerza Solyman Zingall. There lived afar in Astrabad, A man the world agreed was mad, So wickedly he broke his joke Upon the heads of duller folk, So miserly, from day to day, He gathered up and hid away In vaults obscure and cellars haunted What many worthy people wanted. A stingy man! the tradesmen's palms Were spread in vain : " I give no alms Without inquiry" so he'd say, And beat the needy duns away. The bastinado did, 'tis true, Persuade him, now and then, a few- Odd tens of thousands to disburse To glut the taxman's hungry purse, But still, so rich he grew, his fear Was constant that the Shah might hear. (The Shah had heard it long ago, And asked the taxman if 'twere so, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 173 Who promptly answered, rather airish, The man had long been on the parish.) The more he feared, the more he grew A cynic and a miser, too, Until his bitterness and pelf Made him a terror to himself; Then, with a razor's neckwise stroke, He tartly cut his final joke. So perished, not an hour too soon, The wicked Muley Ben Maroon. From Astrabad to Ispahan At camel-speed the rumor ran That, breaking through tradition hoar, And throwing all his kinsmen o'er, The miser'd left his mighty store Of gold his palaces and lands To needy and deserving hands (Except a penny here and there To pay the dervishes for prayer.) 'Twas known indeed throughout the span Of earth, and into Hindustan That our beloved mute was the Residuary legatee. The people said 'twas very well, And each man had a tale to tell 174 THE COLLECTED WORKS Of how he'd had a finger in't By dropping many a friendly hint At Astrabad, you see. But ah, They feared the news would reach the Shah! To prove the will, the lawyers bore't Before the Kadi's awful court, Who nodded, when he heard it read, Confirmingly, his drowsy head, Nor thought, his sleepiness so great, Himself to gobble the estate. " I give," the dead had writ, " my all To Meerza Solyman Zingall Of Ispahan. With this estate I might quite easily create Ten thousand ingrates, but I shun Temptation and create but one, In whom the whole unthankful crew The rich man's air that ever drew To fat their pauper lungs I fire With vain vicarious desire! From foul Ingratitude's base rout I pick this hapless devil out, Bestowing on him all my lands, My treasures, camels, slaves and bands Of wives I give him all this loot, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 175 And throw my blessing in to boot. Behold, all men^ in this bequest Philanthropy's long wrongs redressed: To speak me ill that man I dower With fiercest will who lacks the power. Allah il Allah! now let him bloat With rancor till his heart's afloat, Unable to discharge the wave Upon his benefactor's grave ! " Forth in their wrath the people came And swore it was a sin and shame To trick their blessed mute; and each Protested, serious of speech, That though he'd long foreseen the worst He'd been against it from the first. By many means they vainly tried The testament to set aside, Each ready with his empty purse To take upon himself the curse; For they had powers of invective Enough to make it ineffective. The ingrates mustered, every man, And marched in force to Ispahan (Which had not quite accommodation) And held a camp of indignation. 176 THE COLLECTED WORKS The man, this while, who never spoke On whom had fallen this thunder-stroke Of fortune, gave no feeling vent, Nor dropped a hint of his intent. Whereas no power to him came His benefactor to defame, Some (such a length had slander gone to) Even whispered that he didn't want to! But none his secret could divine; If suffering he made no sign Until one night as winter neared From all his haunts he disappeared Evanished in a doubtful blank Like little crayfish in a bank, Their heads retracting when you find 'em, And pulling in their holes behind 'em. All through the land of Gul, the stout Young Spring is kicking Winter out. The grass sneaks in upon the scene, Defacing it with bottle-green. The stumbling lamb arrives to ply His restless tail in every eye, Eats nasty mint to spoil his meat And make himself unfit to eat. His noisy throat the bulbul tears In every grove blasphemes and swears OF AMBROSE BIERCE 177 As the immodest rose displays Her shameless charms a dozen ways. Lo ! now, throughout the utmost span Of Ispahan of Gulistan A big new book's displayed in all The shops and cumbers every stall. The price is low the dealers say 'tis And the rich are treated to it gratis. Engraven on its foremost page These title-words the eye engage: "The Life of Muley Ben Maroon, Of Astrabad Rogue, Thief, Buffoon And Miser Liver by the Sweat Of Better Men: A Lamponette Composed in Rhyme and Written All By Meerza Solyman Zingall ! " CORRECTED NEWS 'Twas a maiden lady, the newspapers say, Pious and prim and a bit gone-gray. She slept like an angel, holy and white, Till ten o'clock in the shank o' the night, When men and other wild animals prey, And then she cried in the viewless gloom: " There's a man in the room, a man in the room ! " 178 THE COLLECTED WORKS And this maiden lady, they make it appear, Leapt out of the window, five fathom sheer! Alas, that lying is such a sin When newspaper men need bread and gin And none can be had for less than a lie! For the maiden lady a bit gone-gray Saw the man in the room from across the way, And leapt, not out of the window but in Ten fathoms sheer, as I hope to die! Of a person known as Peters I will humbly crave your leave An unusual adventure into narrative to weave Mr. William Perry Peters, of the town of Muscatel, A public educator and an orator as well. Mr. Peters had a weakness which, 'tis painful to relate, Was a strong predisposition to the pleasures of debate. He would foster disputation wheresoever he might be ; In polygonal contention none so happy was as he. 'Twas observable, however, that the exercises ran Into monologue by Peters, that rhetorical young man. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 179 And she Muscatelian rustics who assisted at the show, By involuntary silence testified their overthrow Mr. Peters, all unheedful of their silence and their grief, Still effacing every vestige of erroneous belief. O, he was a sore affliction to all heretics so bold As to entertain opinions that he didn't care to hold. One day 'twas in pursuance of a pedagogic plan For the mental elevation of Uncultivated Man Mr. Peters, to his pupils, in dismissing them, explained That the Friday evening following (unless, indeed, it rained) Would be signalized by holdings in the schoolhouse a debate Free to all who their opinions might desire to venti late On the question, "Which is better, as a serviceable gift, Speech or hearing, from barbarity the human mind to lift?" The pupils told their fathers, who, forehanded always, met At the barroom to discuss it every evening, dry or wet. They argued it and argued it and spat upon the stove, And the non-committal barman on their differences throve. And I state it as a maxim in a loosish kind of way: 180 THE COLLECTED WORKS You'll have the more to back your word the less you have to say. Public interest was lively, but one Ebenezer Fink Of the Rancho del Jackrabbit, only seemed to sit and think. On the memorable evening all the men of Muscatel Came to listen to the logic and the eloquence as well All but William Perry Peters, whose attendance there, I fear, Was to wreak his ready rhetoric upon the public ear, And prove (whichever side he took) that hearing wouldn't lift The human mind as ably as the other, greater gift. The judges being chosen and the disputants enrolled, The question he proceeded in extenso to unfold: " Resolved The sense of hearing lifts the mind up out of reach Of the fogs of error better than the faculty of speech." This simple proposition he expounded, word by word, Till they best understood it who least perfectly had heard. Even the judges comprehended what he ventured to ex plain The impact of a spit-ball admonishing In vain. Beginning at a period before Creation's morn, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 181 He had reached the bounds of tolerance and Adam yet unborn. As down the early centuries of pre-historic time He tracked important principles and quoted striking rhyme, And Whisky Bill, prosaic soul! proclaiming him a jay, Had risen and like an earthquake, " reeled unheededly away," And a late lamented cat, when opportunity should serve, Was preparing to embark upon her parabolic curve, A noise arose outside the door was opened with a bang, And old Ebenezer Fink was heard ejaculating "G'lang!" Straight into that assembly gravely marched without a wink An ancient ass the property it was of Mr. Fink. Its ears depressed and beating time to its infestive tread, Silent through silence, moved amain that stately quad ruped! It stopped before the orator, and in the lamplight thrown Upon its tail they saw that member weighted with a stone. Then spake old Ebenezer: "Gents, I heern o* this de bate 182 THE COLLECTED WORKS On w'ether v'ice or y'ears is best the mind to elevate. Now 'y er>s a bird ken throw some light uponto that tough theme: He has 'em both, I'm free to say, oncommonly extreme. He wa'n't invited for to speak, but he will not refuse (If t'other gentleman ken wait) to exposay his views." Ere merriment or anger o'er amazement could prevail, He cut the string that held the stone on that canary's tail. Freed from the weight, that member made a gesture of delight, Then rose until its rigid length was horizontal quite. With lifted head and level ears along his withers laid, Jack sighed, refilled his lungs and then to put it mildly brayed ! He brayed until the stones were stirred in circumjacent hills, And sleeping women rose and fled, in divers kinds of frills. 'Tis said that awful bugle-blast to make the story brief- Wafted William Perry Peters through the window, like a leaf! Such is the tale. If anything additional occurred *Tis not set down, though, truly, I remember to have heard OF AMBROSE BIERCE 183 That a gentleman named Peters, now residing at Sequel, A considerable distance from the town of Muscatel, Is opposed to education, and to rhetoric, as well. TO MY LAUNDRESS Saponacea, wert thou not so fair I'd curse thee for thy multitude of sins For sending home my clothes all full of pins, A shirt occasionally that's a snare And a delusion, got, the Lord knows where, The Lord knows why, a sock whose outs and ins None know, nor where it ends nor where begins, And fewer cuffs than ought to be my share. But when I mark thy lilies how they grow, And the red roses of thy ripening charms, I bless the lovelight in thy dark eyes dreaming. I'll never pay thee, but I'd gladly go Into the magic circle of thine arms, Supple and fragrant from repeated steaming. 184 THE COLLECTED WORKS FAME One thousand years I slept beneath the sod, My sleep in 1901 beginning, Then, by the action of some scurvy god Who happened then to recollect my sinning, I was revived and given another inning. On breaking from my grave I saw a crowd A formless multitude of men and women, Gathered about a ruin. Clamors loud I heard, and curses deep enough to swim in; And, pointing at me, one said : " Let's put htm in ! " Then each turned on me with an evil look, As in my ragged shroud I stood and shook. "Nay, good Posterity," I cried, "forbear! If that's a jail I fain would be remaining Outside, for truly I should little care To catch my death of cold. I'm just regaining The life lost long ago by my disdaining To take precautions against draughts like those That, haply, penetrate that cracked and splitting Old structure." Then an aged wight arose From a chair of state in which he had been sitting, And with preliminary coughing, spitting And wheezing, said : " 'Tis not a jail, we're sure, Whate'er it may have been when it was newer. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 185 ' 'Twas 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 practices 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 mine 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 friends, 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 'twas 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." 186 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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. 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. 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. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 187 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 writhes 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. 188 THE COLLECTED WORKS The Lout 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 Anglophilia tooth. The Churchman calls him Atheist; The Atheists, rough-shod, Have ridden o'er him long and hissed: "The wretch believes in Go'd!" 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; OF AMBROSE BIERCE 189 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 ringers 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. 190 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 191 Now, great Salvlni, rise And thunder through your tears! Aha! friends, let your eyes Interpret to your ears. Gods! 'tis 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 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, 'tis true; 192 THE COLLECTED WORKS But shrug, expression, gaze Well, they are Grecian too. But it is Art! God wot Art's tongue to all is known. Faith! he to whom 'twere not Would better hold his own. Shakespeare says act and word Should match together true. For 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 'twas 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, 'tis said, to Sir John Millais. I cannot help thinking that such fine pay Transcended reason's uttermost bounds. 194 THE COLLECTED WORKS For it seems to me uncommonly queer That a painted British statesman's price Exceeds the established value thrice Of a living statesman over here. When at your window radiant you've stood I've sometimes felt forgive me if I 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? OF AMBROSE BIERCE 195 TO A 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! 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, 196 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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 Doxey, 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 skies were red and 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! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 197 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. THE PASSING OF 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. 198 THE COLLECTED WORKS " 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 red-writ testimony cannot mark On every honest cheek; your senses all Locked, incomunicado, 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." "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 OF AMBROSE BIERCE 199 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 Heads hypocritical above his corse To counterfeit a grief that's half remorse. The pageant passes and the exile sleeps, And well his silent tongue the 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, 200 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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. 1903. TO MAUDE Not as two errant spheres together grind With monstrous ruin in the vast of space, Destruction born of that malign embrace, Their hapless peoples all to 'death consigned Not so when our intangible worlds of mind, Even mine and yours, each with its spirit race, Of beings shadowy in form and face, Shall drift together on some blessed wind. No, in that marriage of gloom and light All miracles of beauty shall be wrought, Attesting a diviner faith than man's; For all my sad-eyed daughters of the night Shall smile on your sweet seraphim of thought, Nor any jealous god forbid the banns. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 201 THE BIRTH OF VIRTUE When, long ago, the young world circling flew Through wider reaches of a richer blue, New-eyed, the men and maids saw, manifest, The thoughts untold in one another's breast Each wish displayed, and every passion learned; A look revealed them as a look discerned. But sating Time with clouds o'ercast their eyes; Desire was hidden, and the lips framed lies. A goddess then, emerging from the dust, Fair Virtue rose, the daughter of Distrust. THE SCURRIL PRESS TOM JONESMITH (loquitur) : I've slept right through The night a rather clever thing to do. How soundly women sleep [looks at his wife], They're all alike. The sweetest thing in life Is woman when she lies with folded tongue, Its toil completed and its day-song sung. [Thump/] That's the morning paper. What a bore That it should be delivered at the door. There ought to be some expeditious way To get it t one. By this long delay 202 THE COLLECTED WORKS The fizz gets off the news [a rap is heard"]. That's Jane, the housemaid ; she's an early bird ; She's brought it to the bedroom door, good soul. [Gets up and takes it in.'] Upon the whole, The system's not so bad a one. What's here? Gad! if they've not got after listen, 'dear, [To sleeping wife~\ young Gastrotheos. Well, If Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell She'll shriek again with laughter seeing how They treated Cast, with her. Yet I'll allow 'Tis right if he goes dining at The Pup With Mrs. Thing. WIFE [briskly, waking up] : With her? The hussy! Yes, it serves him right. JONESMITH [continuing to " s-eek the light "] : What's this about old Impycu? That's good! Grip that's the funny man says Impy should Be used as a decoy in shooting tramps. I knew old Impy when he had the " stamps " To buy us all out, and he wasn't then So bad a chap to have about. Grip's pen Is just a tickler! and the world, no doubt, Is better with it than it was without. What? thirteen ladies Jumping Jove! we know Them nearly all! who gamble at a low And very shocking game of cards called " draw " ! O cracky, how they'll squirm! ha-ha! haw-haw! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 203 Let's see what else [wife snores]. Well, I'll be blest! A woman doesn't understand a jest. Hello ! What, what ? the scurvy wretch proceeds To take a fling at me, condemn him ! [reads] : Tom Jonesmith my name's Thomas, vulgar cad! Of the new Shavings Bank the man's gone mad! That's libelous; I'll have him up for that Has had his corns cut. Devil take the rat! What business is't of his, I'd like to know? He didn't have to cut them. Gods! what low And scurril things our papers have become! You skim their contents and you get but scum. Here, Mary [waking wife] I've been attacked In this vile sheet. By Jove, it is a fact ! WIFE [reading it] : How wicked ! Who do you Suppose 'twas wrote it? JONESMITH : Who ? why, who But Grip, the so-called funny-man he wrote Me up because I'd not discount his note. [Blushes like sunset at the hideous lie He'll think of one that's better by and by; Throws down the paper on the floor, and treads A merry measure on it; kicks the shreds And patches all about the room, and still Performs his jig with unabated will.] WIFE [warbling sweetly, like an Elf land horn] : Dear, do be careful of that second corn. 204 THE COLLECTED WORKS STANLEY Noting some great man s composition vile : A head of wisdom and a heart of guile, A will to conquer and a soul to dare, Joined to the manners of a dancing bear, Fools unaccustomed to the wide survey Of various Nature's compensating sway; Untaught to separate the wheat and chaff, To praise the one and at the other laugh; Yearn all in vain and impotently seek Some flawless hero upon whom to wreak The sycophantic worship of the weak. Not so the wise, from superstition free, Who find small pleasure in the supple knee; Quick to discriminate 'twixt good and bad, And willing in the king to find the cad No reason seen why genius and 'deceit, The power to dazzle and the will to cheat, The love of daring and the love of gin, Should not dwell, peaceful, in a single skin. To such, great Stanley, you're a hero still, Despite your cradling in a tub for swill. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 205 Your peasant manners can't efface the mark Of light you drew across the Land of Dark. In you the extremes of character are wed, To serve the quick and vilify the dead. Hero and clown ! O, man of many sides, The Muse of Truth adores you and derides, And sheds, impartial, the revealing ray Upon your head of gold and feet of clay. ONE OF THE UNFAIR SEX She stood at the ticket-seller's Serenely removing her glove, While hundreds of strugglers and yellers, And some that were good at a shove, Were clustered behind her like bats in a cave and dissembling their love. At night she still stood at that window Endeavoring her money to reach; The crowds in her rear, how they sinned O, How dreadfully sinned in their speech! Ten miles and a fraction extended their line, the historians teach. 206 THE COLLECTED WORKS She stands there to-day legislation Has failed to remove her. The trains No longer pull up at that station; And over the ghastly remains Of the army that waited and died of old age fall the snows and the rains. THE LORD'S PRAYER ON A COIN Upon this quarter-eagle's leveled face, The Lord's Prayer, legibly inscribed, I trace. " Our Father which " the pronoun there is funny, And shows the scribe to have addressed the money " Which art in Heaven " an error this, no doubt : The preposition should be stricken out. Needless to quote; I only have designed To praise the frankness of the pious mind Which thought it natural and right to join, With rare significancy, prayer and coin. AD ABSURDUM Congressman Rixey, you're a statesman you Yourself will hardly say that you are not; And yet I know not what you hope to do For those Confederates whose luckless lot Is to have lived through storms of Yankee shot OF AMBROSE BIERCE 207 To this our day. They draw their breath, indeed, But from the Government no cent of what So admirably serves your nobler need. You work for it? Why, that all cavilers concede. You'd call these " rebels " to the Soldiers' Homes On equal terms with persons whom they fought! Whereat the " truly loyal " statesman foams At the loud mouth of him. But that is naught He foams, not for he must, but for he ought : For the Poll-patriot's emotions flow By taking (with much else of value) thought. His feelings, if he have them, never blow His cooling coal of anger to a brighter glow. Well, well, sir, even the Devil may be right Through ignorance or accident. 'Tis said We're sometimes dazzled with too great a light, In which the blind, with customary tread (And by a small, unblinking puppy led) Walk prosperous courses to appointed goals. And so your critics, though without a head Among them eyeless, therefore, as the moles May wiser be than you, who damn their little souls ! 208 THE COLLECTED WORKS If of two aged Southern gentlemen Of equal need and worth, the one that tried To cook the country's goose or say its hen Be blest with all the cheer we can provide, And which to t'other sternly is denied Because he didn't, it will seem right queer. The gods are logical and may deride. Respect the Southern veteran, but fear The laughter of Olympus sounding loud and clear! SAITH THE CZAR My people come to me and make their moan: " We starve, your Majesty give us a stone." That's flat rebellion! how the devil dare They starve right in my capital ? Their prayer For something in their bellies I will meet With that which I'll not trouble them to eat. They ask for greater freedom. No, indeed What happened to my ancestor who freed The serfs? His grateful subjects duly flung Something that spoke to him without a tongue. So he was sacrificed for Freedom's sake, And gathered to his fathers with a rake. I from Autocracy my people free? Ah, would to Heaven they could deliver me! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 209 THE ROYAL JESTER Once on a time, so ancient poets sing, There reigned in Godknowswhere a certain king. So great a monarch ne'er before was seen: He was a hero, even to his queen, In whose respect he held so high a place That none had higher, nay, not even the ace. He was so just his parliament declared Those subjects happy whom his laws had spared; So wise that none of the debating throng Had ever lived to prove him in the wrong; So good that Crime his anger never feared, And Beauty boldly plucked him by the beard; So brave that if his army got a beating None dared to face him when he was retreating. This monarch kept a fool to make his mirth, And loved him tenderly despite his worth. Prompted by what caprice I cannot say, He called the Fool before the throne one day And to that minion seriously said: " I'll abdicate, and you shall reign instead, While I, attired in motley, will make sport To entertain your Majesty and Court." 210 THE COLLECTED WORKS 'Twas done and the Fool governed. He decreed The time of harvest and the time of seed ; Ordered the rains and made the weather clear, And had a famine every second year; Altered the calendar to suit his freak, Ordaining six whole holidays a week; Religious creeds and sacred books prepared; Made war when angry and made peace when scared. New taxes he imposed ; new laws he made ; Drowned those who broke them, who observed them, flayed. In short, he ruled so well that all who'd not Been starved, decapitated, hanged or shot Made the whole country with his praises ring, Declaring he was every inch a king; And the High Priest averred 'twas very odd If one so competent were not a god. Meantime, his master, now in motley clad, Wore such a visage, woful, wan and sad, That some condoled with him as with a brother Who, having lost a wife, had got another. Others, mistaking his profession, often Approached him to be measured for a coffin. For years this highborn Jester never broke The silence he was pondering a joke. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 211 At last, one day, in cap and bells arrayed, He strode into the Council and displayed A long bright smile, that glittered in the gloom Like a gilt epitaph within a tomb. Poising his bauble like a leader's staff, To give the signal when (and why) to laugh, He brought it down with peremptory stroke And simultaneously cracked his joke! I can't repeat it, friends. I ne'er could school Myself to quote from any other fool: A jest, if it were worse than mine, would start My tears; if better, it would break my heart. So, if you please, I'll hold you but to state That royal Jester's melancholy fate. The insulted nation, so the story goes, Rose as one man the very dead arose, Springing indignant from the riven tomb, And babes unborn leapt swearing from the womb! All to the Council Chamber clamoring went, By rage distracted and on vengeance bent. In that vast hall, in due disorder laid, The tools of legislation were displayed, And the wild populace, its wrath to sate, Seized them and heaved them at the Jester's pate. 212 THE COLLECTED WORKS Mountains of writing paper; pools and seas Of ink awaiting, to become decrees, Royal approval and the same in stacks Lay ready for attachment, backed with wax; Pens to make laws, erasers to amend them, With mucilage convenient to extend them; Scissors for limiting their application, Trash-baskets to repeal all legislation These, flung as missiles till the air was dense, Were most offensive weapons of offense, And by their aid the man was nigh destroyed. They ne'er had been so harmlessly employed. Whelmed underneath a load of legal cap, His mouth egurgitating ink on tap, His eyelids mucilaginously sealed, His fertile head by scissors made to yield Abundant harvestage of ears, his pelt, In every wrinkle and on every welt, Quickset with pencil-points from feet to gills And thickly studded with a pride of quills, The royal Jester in the dreadful strife Was made (in short) an editor for life! An idle tale, and yet a moral lurks In this as plainly as in greater works. I shall not give it birth: one moral here Would die of loneliness within a year. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 213 A CAREER IN LETTERS When Liberverm resigned the chair Of This or That in college, where Two decades he had gorged his brain With more than it could well contain, In order to relieve the stress He took to writing for the press. Then Pondronummus said: "I'll help This mine of talent to devel'p : " And straightway bought with coin and credit The Thundergust for him to edit. The great man seized the pen and ink And wrote so hard he couldn't think. Ideas grew beneath his fist And flew like falcons from his wrist. His pen shot sparks all kinds of ways Till all the rivers were ablaze, And where the coruscations fell Men uttered words I dare not spell. Eftsoons with corrugated brow, Wet towels bound about his pow, Locked legs and failing appetite, He thought so hard he couldn't write. 214 THE COLLECTED WORKS His soaring fancies, chickenwise, Came home to roost and wouldn't rise. With dimmer light and milder heat His goose-quill staggered o'er the sheet, Then dragged, then stopped; the finish came He couldn't even write his name. The Thundergust in three short weeks Had risen, roared, and split its cheeks. Said Pondronummus, " How unjust! The storm I raised has laid my dust ! " When, Moneybagger, you have aught Invested in a vein of thought, Be sure you've purchased not, instead, That salted claim, a bookworm's head. THE FOLLOWING PAIR O very remarkable mortal, What food is engaging your jaws And staining with amber their portal? " It's 'baccy I chaws." And why do you sway in your walking, To right and left many degrees, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 215 And hitch up your trousers when talking? " I follers the seas." Great indolent shark in the rollers, Is " 'baccy," too, one of your faults ? You, too, display maculate molars. " I dines upon salts." Strange diet! intestinal pain it Is commonly given to nip. And how can you ever obtain it? " I follers the ship." POLITICAL ECONOMY " I beg you to note," said a Man to a Goose, As he plucked from her bosom the plumage all loose, " That pillows and cushions of feathers, and beds As warm as maids' hearts and as soft as their heads, Increase of life's comforts the general sum Which raises the standard of living." " Come, come," The Goose said impatiently, " tell me or cease, How that is of any advantage to geese." "What, what!" said the man "you are very obtuse! Consumption no profit to those who produce? 216 THE COLLECTED WORKS No good to accrue to Supply from a grand Progressive expansion, all around, of Demand? Luxurious habits no benefit bring To those who purvey the luxurious thing? Consider, I pray you, my friend, how the growth Of luxury promises " " Promises," quoth The sufferer, " what ? to what course is it pledged 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. 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 With goose and a dressing of onions and sage." 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. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 217 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 makes 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 Legislater; 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. 218 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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 glim mer 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 Than a fair dividend of satellites. So all went out but those the best provided, If they had dared would rather have abided. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 219 " 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 Antares, A bald old orb, whose disposition varies. " 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, 220 THE COLLECTED WORKS " 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 becoming, as my spirit flies, A noble statue of myself, life size." Straight as I spoke I heard the voice of Fate : " Look up, my lad, the Gorgon sisters wait." Lifting my eyes, I saw Medusa stand, Stheno, Euryale, on either hand. I gazed unpetrified and unappalled The girls had aged and were entirely bald! A FALSE ALARM When Gertrude Atherton pronounced the ladies Of fair Manhattan hideous as Hades In eyes no splendor, and in cheeks no roses, And, O ye godlings! rudimentary noses OF AMBROSE BIERCE 221 To pass a bad half-hour before their glasses, Straight to their dressing-rooms ran dames and lasses, Who, still dissenting from her curst appraisal, Grew more pugnacious, but not less pugnasal. Ladies, be calm: there's nothing to distress you The Sacred Englishman will rise and bless you. No noses none to speak of is alarming, But that you can't speak through them that is charming ! 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 some one 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, 222 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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 cheek 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. 1885. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 223 CONSTANCY I had a dream. A throng of people sped Hard after something that before them fled A ball that leapt and bounded. I pursued, Kicking, like all the rest, at Bryan's head. Ah, God, it was indeed a ghastly play! That noble head its locks in disarray Streaming like feathers of a shuttlecock Urged with resounding buffets on its way. Ever the foremost in the chase accurst Ran Two who in his life, too, had been first Among his followers. " Behold," I cried, " Those twins of constancy, the Devil and Hearst ! " Smitten in spirit with a sudden shame, And from intemperate exertion lame, I sprang, and skyward with a parting kick Hoisted that mellow bulb, and left the game. 224, THE COLLECTED WORKS THE NEW ENOCH ARDEN Enoch Arden was an able Seaman; hear of his mishap Not in wild mendacious fable, As 'twas 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 free man Time had touched him up with gray. Long he searched the far 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, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 225 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 'twas known that he was extant, At his boyhood'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, Wat a larruk to diskiver That I've lost my blessed way! " Wat, alas, would be my bloomin* Fate if Philip now I see, 226 THE COLLECTED WORKS Which I lammed? or my old 'oman, Which has frequent basted me?" All the landscape swam around him At the thought of such a lot: In a swoon his Annie found him And conveyed him to her cot. 'Twas the very house, the garden, Where their honeymoon was passed: 'Twas 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." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 227 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 My whole devotion e'er could 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. 228 THE COLLECTED WORKS INCURABLE From pride, guile, 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 For the dim thief, and plays its trick Upon the lock he means to pick. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 229 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 ! " 'Tis 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 its whole boweling displayed, And all its organs on parade. Dear Pun, thou'rt common ground of bliss, Where Punch and I can meet and kiss; Than thee my wit can stoop no lower No higher his does ever soar. 230 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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 takes attention. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 231 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. 'Twould 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. 232 THE COLLECTED WORKS A BLACKLIST " 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 explaining note: " These cheat because the law makes theft a crime, And they obey all laws but laws of rhyme." 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 OF AMBROSE BIERCE 233 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 not badly guess. God help you if ambitious to persuade The fools who take opinions 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 The King of Scotland, years and years ago, Convened his courtiers in a gallant row And thus addressed them: " Gentle sirs, from you Abundant counsel I have had, and true: What laws to make to serve the public weal; What laws of Nature's making to repeal; 234 THE COLLECTED WORKS What old religion is the only true one, And what the greater merit of some new one ; What friends of yours my favor have forgot ; Which of your enemies against me plot. In harvests ample to augment my treasures, Behold the fruits of your sagacious measures ! The punctual planets, to their periods just, Attest your wisdom and approve my trust. Lo! the reward your faith and wisdom bring: The grateful placemen bless their useful king! But while you quaff the nectar of my favor I mean somewhat to modify its flavor By just infusing a peculiar dash Of tonic bitter in the calabash. And should you, too abstemious, disdain it, Egad! I'll hold your noses till you drain it! "You know, you dogs, your master long has felt A keen distemper in the royal pelt A testy, superficial irritation, Brought home, I fancy, from some foreign nation. For this a thousand simples you've prescribed Unguents external, draughts to be imbibed. You've plundered Scotland of its plants, the seas You've ravished, and despoiled the Hebrides To brew me remedies which, in probation, Were sovereign only in their application. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 235 In vain, and eke in pain, have I applied Your flattering unctions to my soul and hide: Physic and hope have been my daily food I've swallowed treacle by the holy rood! " Your wisdom which sufficed to guide the year And tame the seasons in their mad career, When set to higher purposes has failed me And added anguish to the ills that ailed me. Nor that alone, but each ambitious leech His rivals' skill has labored to impeach By hints equivocal in secret speech. For years, to conquer our respective broils, We've plied each other with pacific oils In vain: your turbulence is unallayed, My flame unquenched; your quarreling unstayed; My life so wretched from your strife to save it That death were welcome did I dare to brave it. With zeal inspired by your intemperate pranks, My subjects muster in contending ranks. Those fling their banners to the startled breeze To champion some royal ointment; these The standard of a royal purge display And 'neath that ensign wage a wasteful fray! Brave tongues are thundering from sea. to sea, Torrents of sweat roll reeking o'er the lea! My people perish in their martial fear, And rival bagpipes cleave the royal ear! 236 THE COLLECTED WORKS " Now, caitiffs, tremble, for this very hour Your injured sovereign shall assert his power! Behold this lotion, carefully compound Of all the poisons you for me have found Of biting washes such as tan the skin, And drastic drinks to vex the parts within. What aggravates an ailment will produce I mean to rub you with this dreadful juice! Divided counsels you no more shall hatch At last you shall unanimously scratch. Kneel, villains, kneel, and doff your shirts God bless us! They'll seem, when you resume them, robes of Nessus ! " The sovereign ceased, and, sealing what he spoke, From Arthur's Seat* confirming thunders broke. The conscious culprits, to their fate resigned, Sank to their knees, all piously inclined. This act, from high Ben Lomond where she floats, The thrifty goddess, Caledonia, notes. Glibly as nimble sixpence, down she tilts Headlong, and ravishes away their kilts, Tears off each plaid and all their shirts discloses, Removes each shirt and their broad backs exposes. The king advanced then cursing fled amain, Dashing the phial to the stony plain *A famous height overlooking Edinburgh. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 237 (Where't straight became a fountain brimming o'er, Whence Father Tweed derives his liquid store) For lo! already on each back sans stitch The red sign manual of the Rosy Witch! PEACE When lion and lamb have together lain down Spectators cry out, all in chorus: " The lamb doesn't shrink nor the lion frown A miracle's working before us ! " But 'tis patent why Hot-head his wrath holds in, And Faint-heart her terror and loathing; For the one's but an ass in a lion's skin, The other a wolf in sheep's clothing. THANKSGIVING The Superintendent of an Almshouse. A Pauper. SUPERINTENDENT: So you're unthankful you'll not eat the bird? You sit about the place all day and gird. 238 THE COLLECTED WORKS I understand you'll not attend the ball That's to be given to-night in Pauper Hall. PAUPER : Why, that is true, precisely as you've heard: I have no teeth and I will eat no bird. SUPERINTENDENT : Ah ! see how good is Providence. Because Of teeth He has denuded both your jaws The fowl's made tender; you can overcome it By suction; or at least well, you can gum it, Confirming thus the dictum of the preachers That Providence is good to all His creatures Turkeys excepted. Come, ungrateful friend, If our Thanksgiving dinner you'll attend You shall say grace ask God to bless at least The soft and liquid portions of the feast. PAUPER: Without those teeth my speech is rather thick He'll hardly understand Gum Arabic. No, I'll not dine to-day. As to the ball, 'Tis known to you that I've no legs at all. I had the gout hereditary; so, As it could not be cornered in my toe They cut my legs off in the fond belief That shortening me would make my anguish brief. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 239 Lacking my legs I could not prosecute With any good advantage a pursuit; And so, because my father chose to court Heaven's favor with his ortolans and port (Thanksgiving every day!) the Lord supplied Saws for my legs, an almshouse for my pride And, once a year, a bird for my inside. No, I'll not dance my light fantastic toe Took to its heels some twenty years ago. Some small repairs would be required for putting My body on a saltatory footing. [Sings:] O the legless man's an unhappy chap Tum-hl, tum-hl, turn-he o'haddy. The favors o' fortune fall not in his lap Tum-hi, tum-heedle-do hum. The plums of office avoid his plate No matter how much he may stump the State Tum-hl, ho-heeee. The grass grows never beneath his feet, But he cannot hope to make both ends meet Tum-hl. With a gleeless eye and a somber heart, He plays the role of his mortal part: Wholly himself he can never be. O, a soleless corporation is he! Turn. 240 THE COLLECTED WORKS SUPERINTENDENT : The chapel bell is calling, thankless friend, Balls you may not, but church you shall, attend. Some recognition cannot be denied To the great mercy that has turned aside The sword of death from us and let it fall Upon the people's necks in Montreal; That spared our city, steeple, roof and dome, And drowned the Texans out of house and home; Blessed all our continent with peace, to flood The Balkan with a cataclysm of blood. Compared with blessings of so high degree, Your private woes look mighty small to me. L'AUDACE Daughter of God! Audacity divine Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool, Not thine of idiots the vocal drool: Thy bastard sister of the brow of brass, Presumption, actuates the charging ass. Sky-born Audacity! of thee who sings Should strike with freer hand than mine the strings; The notes should mount on pinions true and strong, For thou, the subject, shouldst sustain the song, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 241 Till angels lean from Heaven, a breathless throng! Alas! with reeling heads and wavering tails, They (notes, not angels) drop and the hymn fails; The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbs Are torn to rags upon the lyre he strums. Have done! the lofty thesis makes demand For stronger voices and a harder hand Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire, And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire! THE GOD'S VIEW-POINT Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen, The wisest and the best of men, Betook him to the place where sat With folded feet upon a mat Of precious stones beneath a palm, In sweet and everlasting calm, That ancient and immortal gent, The God of Rational Content. As tranquil and unmoved as Fate, The deity reposed in state, With palm to palm and sole to sole, And beaded breast and beetling jowl, And belly spread upon his thighs, And costly diamonds for eyes. 242 THE COLLECTED WORKS As Chunder Sen approached and knelt To show the reverence he felt; Then beat his head upon the sod To prove his fealty to the god; And then by gestures signified The other sentiments inside ; The god's right eye (as Chunder Sen, The wisest and the best of men, Half-fancied) grew by just a thought More narrow than it truly ought. Yet still that prince of devotees, Persistent upon bended knees And elbows bored into the earth, Declared the god's exceeding worth And begged his favor. Then at last, Within that cavernous and vast Thoracic space was heard a sound Like that of water underground A gurgling note that found a vent At mouth of that Immortal Gent In such a chuckle as no ear Had e'er been privileged to hear! Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen, The wisest, greatest, best of men, Heard with a natural surprise That mighty midriff improvise. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 243 And greater yet the marvel was When from between those massive jaws Fell words to make the views more plain The god was pleased to entertain: " Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen," So ran the rede in speech of men " Foremost of mortals in assent To creed of Rational Content, Why come you here to impetrate A blessing on your scurvy pate? Can you not rationally be Content without disturbing me? Can you not take a hint a wink Of what of all this rot I think? Is laughter lost upon you quite, To check you in your pious rite? What! know you not we gods protest That all religion is a jest? You take me seriously? you About me make a great ado (When I but wish to be alone) With attitudes supine and prone, With genuflexions and with prayers, And putting on of solemn airs, To draw my mind from the survey Of Rational Content away! Learn once for all, if learn you can, 244 THE COLLECTED WORKS This truth, significant to man: A pious person is by odds The one most hateful to the gods." Then stretching forth his great right hand, Which shadowed all that sunny land, The deity bestowed a touch Which Chunder Sen not overmuch Enjoyed a touch divine that made The sufferer hear stars! They played And sang as on Creation's morn When spheric harmony was born. Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen, The most astonished man of men, Fell straight asleep and when he woke The deity nor moved nor spoke, But sat beneath that ancient palm In sweet and everlasting calm. THE ESTHETES The lily cranks, the lily cranks, The loppy, loony lasses! They multiply in rising ranks To execute their solemn pranks, They moon along in masses. Blow, sweet lily, in the shade! O, Sunflower decorate the dado! The maiden ass, the maiden ass, The tall and tailless jenny! In limp attire as green as grass, She stands, a monumental brass, The one of one too many. Blow, sweet lily, in the shade! O, Sunflower decorate the dado! 1883. 246 THE COLLECTED WORKS WITH MINE OWN PETARD Time was the local poets sang their songs Beneath their breath in terror of the thongs I snapped about their shins. Though mild the stroke Bards, like the conies, are "a feeble folk," Fearing all noises but the one they make Themselves at which all other mortals quake. Now from their cracked and disobedient throats, Like rats from sewers scampering, their notes Pour forth to move, whene'er the season serves, If not our legs to dance, at least our nerves; As once a ram's-horn solo maddened all The sober-minded stones of Jerich's wall. A year's exemption from the critic's curse Mends the bard's courage but impairs his verse. Thus poolside frogs, when croaking in the night, Are frayed to silence by a meteor's flight, Or by the sudden plashing of a stone From some adjacent cottage garden thrown, But straight renew the song with double din Whene'er the light goes out or man goes in. Shall I with arms unbraced (my casque unlatched, My falchion pawned, my buckler, too, attached) Resume the cuishes and the broad cuirass, Accomplishing my body all in brass, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 247 And arm in battle-royal to oppose A village poet singing through the nose? NQ, let them rhyme ; I fought them once before And stilled their songs but, Satan! how they swore! Cuffed them upon the mouth whene'er their throats They cleared for action with their sweetest notes; Twisted their ears (they'd oft tormented mine) And damned them roundly all along the line; Clubbed the whole crew from the Parnassian slopes, A wreck of broken heads and broken hopes! What gained I so? I feathered every curse Launched at the village bards with lilting verse. The town approved and christened me (to show its High admiration) Chief of Local Poets! RESTORED Dull were the days and sober, The mountains were brown and bare, For the season was sad October And a dirge was in the air. The mated starlings flew over To the isles of the southern sea. She wept for her warrior lover Wept and exclaimed: "Ah me! 248 THE COLLECTED WORKS " Long years have I mourned my darling In his battle-bed at rest; And it's O, to be a starling, With a mate to share my nest!" The angels pitied her sorrow, Restoring her warrior's life; And he came to her arms on the morrow To claim her and take her to wife. An aged lover a portly, Bald lover, a trifle too stiff, With manners that would have been courtly, And would have been graceful, if If the angels had only restored him Without the additional years That had passed since the enemy bored him To death with their long, sharp spears. As it was, he bored her, and she rambled Away with her father's young groom, And the old lover smiled as he ambled Contentedly back to the tomb. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 249 SIRES AND SONS Wild wanton Luxury lays waste the land With difficulty tilled by Thrift's hard hand ! Then dies the State! and, in its carcass found, The millionaires all maggot-like abound. Alas! was it for this that Warren died, And Arnold sold himself to t'other side, Stark piled at Bennington his British dead, And Gates at Camden, Lee at Monmouth, fled?- For this that Perry did the foeman fleece, And Hull surrender to preserve the peace? Degenerate countrymen, renounce, I pray, The slothful ease, the luxury, the gay And gallant trappings of this idle life, And be more fit for one another's wife. A CHALLENGE A bull imprisoned in a stall Broke boldly the confining wall, And found himself, when out of bounds, Within a washerwoman's grounds. 250 THE COLLECTED WORKS There, hanging on a line to dry, A crimson skirt inflamed his eye. With bellowings that woke the dead, He bent his formidable head, With pointed horns and knurly forehead; Then, planting firm his shoulders horrid, Began, with rage made half insane, To paw the arid earth amain, Flinging the dust upon his flanks In desolating clouds and banks, The while his eyes' uneasy white Betrayed his doubt what foe the bright Red tent concealed, perchance, from sight. The garment, which, all undismayed, Had never paled a single shade, Now found a tongue a dangling sock, Left carelessly inside the smock: " I must insist, my gracious liege, That you'll be pleased to raise the siege: My colors I will never strike. I know your sex you're all alike. Some small experience I've had You're not the first I've driven mad." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 251 TWO SHOWS The showman (blessing in a thousand shapes!) Parades a " School of Educated Apes ! " Small education's needed, I opine, Or native wit, to make a monkey shine. The brute exhibited has naught to do But ape the larger apes that come to view The hoodlum with his horrible grimace, Long upper lip and furtive, shuffling pace, Significant reminders of the time When hunters, not policemen, made him climb; The lady loafer with her draggling "trail," That free translation of an ancient tail; The sand-lot quadrumane in hairy suit, Whose heels are thumbs perverted by the boot; The painted actress throwing down the gage To elder artists of the sylvan stage, Proving that in the time of Noah's flood Two ape-skins held her whole profession's blood; The critic waiting, like a hungry pup, To write the school perhaps to eat it up, As chance or luck occasion may reveal To earn a dollar or maraud a meal. To view the school of apes these creatures go, Unconscious that themselves are half the show. 252 THE COLLECTED WORKS These, if the simian his course but trim To copy them as they have copied him, Will call him " educated." Of a verity There's much to learn by studying posterity. A POET'S HOPE 'Twas a weary-looking mortal, and he wandered near the portal Of the melancholy City of the Discontented Dead. He was pale and worn exceeding and his manner was unheeding, As if it could not matter what he did nor what he said. " Sacred stranger," I addressed him with a reverence befitting The austere, unintermitting, dread solemnity he wore; 'Tis the custom, too, prevailing in the vicinage when hailing One who possibly may be a person lately " gone be fore " " Sacred stranger, much I ponder on your evident de jection, But my carefulest reflection leaves the riddle still unread. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 253 How do you yourself explain your dismal tendency to wander By the melancholy City of the Discontented Dead?" Then that solemn person, pausing in the march that he was making, Roused himself as if awaking, fixed his dull and stony eye On my countenance and slowly, like a priest devout and holy, Chanted in a mournful monotone the following reply: " O my brother, do not fear it ; I'm no disembodied spirit I am Lampton, the Slang Poet, with a price upon my head. I am watching by this portal for some late lamented mortal To arise in his disquietude and leave his earthy bed. " Then I hope to take possession and pull in the earth above me And, renouncing my profession, ne'er be heard of any more. For there's not a soul to love me and no living thing respects me, Which so painfully affects me that I fain would ' go before.' " Then I felt a deep compassion for the gentleman's de jection, For privation of affection would refrigerate a frog. So I said : " If nothing human if neither man nor woman Can appreciate the fashion of your merit buy a dog." THE WOMAN AND THE DEVIL When Man and Woman had been made, All but the disposition, The Devil to the workshop strayed, And somehow gained admission. The Master rested from his work, For this was on a Sunday, The man was snoring like a Turk, Content to wait till Monday. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 255 " Too bad ! " the Woman cried ; " O, why, Does slumber not benumb me? A disposition! Oh, I die To know if 'twill become me ! " The Adversary said : " No doubt 'Twill be extremely fine, ma'am, Though sure 'tis long to be without- I beg to lend you mine, ma'am." The Devil's disposition when She'd got, of course she wore it, For she'd no disposition then, Nor now has, to restore it. TWO ROGUES Dim, grim, and silent as a ghost, The sentry occupied his post, To all the stirrings of the night Alert of ear and sharp of sight. A sudden something sight or sound, About, above, or underground, He knew not where nor what ensued, Thrilling the sleeping solitude. 256 THE COLLECTED WORKS The soldier cried: "Halt! Who goes there?" The answer came: "Death in the air." " Advance, Death give the countersign, Or perish if you cross that line ! " To change his tone Death thought it wise Reminded him they'd been allies Against the Russ, the Frank, the Turk, In many a bloody bit of work. " In short," said he, " in every weather We've soldiered, you and I, together." The sentry would not let him pass. " Go back," he growled, " you tiresome ass Go back and rest till the next war, Nor kill by methods all abhor: Miasma, famine, filth and vice, With plagues of locusts, plagues of lice, Foul food, foul water, and foul gases, Rank exhalations from morasses. If you employ such low allies This business you will vulgarize. Renouncing then the field of fame To wallow in a waste of shame, I'll prostitute my strength and lurk About the country doing work These hands to labor I'll devote, Nor cut, by Hteaven, another throat ! " OF AMBROSE BIERCE 257 THE PIED PIPER OF BROOKLYN So, Beecher's dead. He was a great soul, too- Great as a giant organ is, whose reeds Hold in them all the souls of all the creeds That man has ever taught and never knew. When on this mighty instrument was laid His hand Who fashioned it, our common moan Was suppliant in its thundering. The tone Grew more vivacious when the Devil played. No more those luring harmonies we hear, And lo! already men forget the sound. They turn, retracing all the dubious ground O'er which he'd led them stoutly by the ear. NOT GUILTY " I saw your charms in another's arms," Said a Grecian swain with his blood a-boil; "And he kissed you fair as he held you there, A willing bird in a serpent's coil ! " The maid looked up from the cinctured cup Wherein she was crushing the berries red, Pain and surprise in her honest eyes " It was only one o' those gods," she said. 258 THE COLLECTED WORKS PRESENTIMENT With saintly grace and reverent tread, She walked among the graves with me; Her every foot-fall seemed to be A benediction on the dead. The guardian spirit of the place She seemed, and I some ghost forlorn Surprised in the untimely morn She made with her resplendent face. Moved by some waywardness of will, Three paces from the path apart She stepped and stood my prescient heart Was stricken with a passing chill. The folk-lore of the years agone Remembering, I smiled and thought: " Who shudders suddenly at naught, His grave is being trod upon." But now I know that it was more Than idle fancy. O, my sweet, I did not think so little feet Could make a buried heart so sore! A STUDY IN GRAY I step from the door with a shiver (This fog is uncommonly cold) And ask myself: What did I give her? The maiden a trifle gone-old, With the head of gray hair that was gold. Ah, well, I suppose 'twas a dollar, And doubtless the change is correct, Though it's odd that it seems so much smaller Than what I'd a right to expect. But you pay when you dine, I reflect. So I walk up the street 'twas a saunter A score of years back, when I strolled From this door ; and our talk was all banter Those days when her hair was of gold, And the sea-fog less searching and cold. A score ? Why, that isn't so very Much time to have lost from a life. There's reason enough to be merry: I've not fallen down in the strife, But marched with the drum and the fife. 260 THE COLLECTED WORKS If Hope, when she lured me and beckoned, Had pushed at my shoulders instead, And Fame, on whose favors I reckoned, Had laureled the worthiest head, I could hallow the years that are dead. Believe me, I've held my own, mostly Through all of this wild masquerade; But somehow the fog is more ghostly To-night, and the skies are more grayed, Like the locks of the restaurant maid. If ever I'd fainted and faltered I'd fancy this did but appear; But the climate, I'm certain, has altered Grown colder and more austere Than it was in that earlier year. The lights, too, are strangely unsteady That lead from the street to the quay. I think they'll go out and I'm ready To follow. Out there in the sea The fog-bell is calling to me. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 261 FOR MERIT To Parmentier Parisians raise A statue fine and large: He cooked potatoes fifty ways, Nor ever led a charge. " Palmam qui meruit" the rest You know as well as I; And best of all to him that best Of sayings will apply. Let meaner men the poet's bays Or warrior's medal wear; iWho cooks potatoes fifty ways Shall bear the palm de terre. A BIT OF SCIENCE What! photograph in colors? 'Tis a dream And he who dreams it is not overwise, If colors are vibration they but seem, And have no being. But if Tyndall lies, Why, come, then photograph my lady's eyes. Nay, friend, you can't; the splendor of their blue, 262 THE COLLECTED WORKS As on my own beclouded orbs they rest, To naught but vibratory motion's due, As heart, head, limbs and all I am attest. How could her eyes, at rest themselves, be making In me so uncontrollable a shaking? 1894. THE TABLES TURNED Over the man the street car ran, And the driver did never grin. " O killer of men, pray tell me when Your laughter means to begin. "Ten years to a day I've observed you slay, And I never have missed before Your jubilant peals as your crunching wheels Were spattered with human gore. " Why is it, my boy, that you smother your joy, And why do you make no sign Of the merry mind that is dancing behind A solemner face than mine ? " OF AMBROSE BIERCE 263 The driver replied : " I would laugh till I cried If I had bisected you ; But I'd like to explain, if I can for the pain, 'Tis myself that I've cut in two." TO A DEJECTED POET Thy gift, if that it be of God, Thou hast no warrant to appraise, Nor say : " Here part, O Muse, our ways, The road too stony to be trod." Not thine to call the labor hard And the reward inadequate. Who haggles o'er his hire with Fate Is better bargainer than bard. What ! count the effort labor lost When thy good angel holds the reed? It were a sorry thing indeed To stay him till thy palm be crossed. "The laborer is worthy" nay, The sacred ministry of song Is rapture! 'twere a grievous wrong To fix a wages-rate for play. 264 THE COLLECTED WORKS THE HUMORIST "What is that, mother?" " The humorist, child. His hands are black, but his heart is mild." " May I touch him, mother? " " 'Twere needlessly done : He is slightly touched already, my son." " O, why does he wear such a ghastly grin ? " " 'Tis the outward sign of a joke within." "Will he crack it, mother?" " Not so, my saint ; 'Tis meant for the Saturday Liver complaint." "Does he suffer, mother?" " God help him, yes! A thousand and fifty kinds of distress." " What makes him sweat so? " " The demons that lurk In the fear of having to go to work." " Why doesn't he end, then, his life with a rope? " " Abolition of Hell has deprived him of hope." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 265 MONTEFIORE I saw 'twas in a dream the other night A man whose hair with age was thin and white: One hundred years had bettered by his birth, And still his step was firm, his eye was bright. Before him and about him pressed a crowd. Each head in reverence was bared and bowed, And Jews and Gentiles in a hundred tongues Extolled his deeds and spoke his fame aloud. I joined the throng and, pushing forward, cried, " Montefiore ! " with the rest, and vied In efforts to caress the hand that ne'er To want and worth had charity denied. So closely round him swarmed our shouting clan He scarce could breathe, and taking from a pan A gleaming coin, he tossed it o'er our heads, And in a moment was a lonely manl 266 THE COLLECTED WORKS DISCRETION SHE: I'm told that men have sometimes got Too confidential, and Have said to one another what They well, you understand. I hope I don't offend you, sweet, But are you sure that you're discreet? HE: 'Tis true, sometimes my friends in wine Their conquests do recall, But none can truly say that mine Are known to him at all. I never, never talk you o'er In truth, I never get the floor. AN EXILE 'Tis the census enumerator A-singing all forlorn: " It's ho ! for the tall potater, And ho! for the clustered corn. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 267 The whiffle-tree bends in the breeze and the fine Large eggs are a-ripening on the vine. " Some there must be to till the soil And the widow's weeds keep down. I wasn't cut out for rural toil But they wont let me live in town ! They're not so many by two or three, As they think, but ah! they're too many for me." Thus the census man, bowed down with care, Warbled his wood-note high. There was blood on his brow and blood in his hair, But he had no blood in his eye. THE DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT Baffled he stands upon the track The automatic switches clack. Where'er he turns his solemn eyes The interlocking signals rise. The trains, before his visage pale, Glide smoothly by, nor leave the rail. 268 THE COLLECTED WORKS No splinter-spitted victim he Hears uttering the note high C. In sorrow deep he hangs his head, A-weary would that he were dead. Now suddenly his spirits rise A great thought kindles in his eyes. Hope like a headlight's vivid glare, Splendors the path of his despair. His genius shines, the clouds roll back "I'll place obstructions on the track!" TO A PROFESSIONAL EULOGIST Newman, in you two parasites combine: As tapeworm and as graveworm too you shine. When on the virtues of the quick you've dwelt, The pride of residence was all you felt (What vain vulgarian the wish ne'er knew To paint his lodging a flamboyant hue?) And when the praises of the dead you've sung, 'Twas appetite, not truth, inspired your tongue; OF AMBROSE BIERCE 269 As ill-bred men when warming to their wine Boast of its merit though it be but brine. Not gratitude incites your song, nor should Even Charity would shun you if she could. You share, 'tis true, the rich man's daily dole, But what you get you take by way of toll. Vain to resist you vermifuge alone Has power to push you from your robber throne. When to escape you he's compelled to die, Hey! presto! in the twinkling of an eye You vanish as a tapeworm, reappear As graveworm and resume your curst career. As host no more, to satisfy your need He serves as dinner your unaltered greed. thrifty sycophant to wealth and fame, Son of servility and priest of shame, While naught your mad ambition can abate To lick the spittle of the rich and great; While still like smoke your eulogies arise To soot your heroes and inflame our eyes; While still with holy oil, like that which ran Down Aaron's beard, you smear each famous man, 1 cannot choose but think it very odd It ne'er occurs to you to fawn on God. 270 THE COLLECTED WORKS ELECTION DAY Despots effete upon tottering thrones Unsteadily poised upon dead men's bones, Walk up! walk up! the circus is free, And this wonderful spectacle you shall see: Millions of voters who mostly are fools, Demagogues' dupes and candidates' tools Armies of uniformed mountebanks, And braying disciples of brainless cranks. Many a week they've bellowed like beeves, Bitterly blackguarding, lying like thieves, Libeling freely the quick and the dead And painting the New Jerusalem red. Tyrants monarchical emperors, kings, Princes and nobles and all such things Noblemen, gentlemen, step this way: There's nothing, the Devil excepted, to pay, And the freaks and curios here to be seen Are very uncommonly grand and serene. No more with vivacity they debate, Nor cheerfully crack the dissenting pate; No longer, the dull understanding to aid, The stomach accepts the instructive blade, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 271 Nor the stubborn heart learns what is what From a revelation of rabbit-shot; And vilification's flames behold! Burn with a bickering faint and cold. Magnificent spectacle! every tongue Suddenly civil that yesterday rung (Like the clapper beating a brazen bell) Each fair reputation's eternal knell ; Hands no longer delivering blows, And noses, for counting, arrayed in rows. Walk up, gentlemen nothing to pay The Devil goes back to Hell to-day. THE MILITIAMAN " O warrior with the burnished arms, With bullion cord and tassel, Pray tell me of the lurid charms Of service and its fierce alarms: The storming of the castle, The charge across the smoking field, The rifles' busy rattle What thoughts inspire the men who wield 272 THE COLLECTED WORKS The blade their gallant souls how steeled And fortified in battle." " Nay, man of peace, seek not to know War's baleful fascination The soldier's hunger for the foe, His dread of safety, joy to go To court annihilation. Though calling bugles blow not now, Nor drums begin to beat yet, One fear unmans me, I'll allow, And poisons all my pleasure : How If I should get my feet wet!" A WELCOME Because you call yourselves Knights Templars, and There's neither Knight nor Temple in the land, Because you thus by vain pretense degrade To paltry purposes traditions grand, Because to cheat the ignorant you say The thing that's not, elated still to sway The crass credulity of gaping fools And women by fantastical display, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 273 Because no sacred fires did ever warm Your hearts, high knightly service to perform A woman's breast or coffer of a man The only citadel you dare to storm, Because while railing still at lord and peer, At pomp and fuss-and-feathers while you jeer, Each member of your order tries to graft A peacock's tail upon his barren rear, Because that all these things are thus and so, I bid you welcome to our city. Lo! You're free to come, and free to stay, and free, As soon as it shall please you, sirs to go. A SERENADE >, ad's dyanio," He sang beneath her lattice. " ' Sas agapo ' ? " she murmure4 " O, I wonder, now what that is 1 " Was she less fair that she did bear So light a load of knowledge ? Are tender looks got out of books, Or kisses taught in college? 274 THE COLLECTED WORKS Of woman's lore give me no more Than how to love. In many A tongue men brawl ; she speaks them all Who says " I love," in any. THE WISE AND GOOD " O father, I saw at the church as I passed The populace gathered in numbers so vast That they cculdn't get in; and their voices were low, And they looked as if suffering terrible woe." ' 'Twas the funeral, child, of a gentleman 'dead For whom the great heart of humanity bled." " What made it bleed, father, for every day Somebody, somewhere, passes away? Do the newspaper men print a column or more Of every person whose troubles are o'er? " " O, no ; they could never do that and indeed, Though printers might print it, no reader would rea'd. To the sepulcher all, soon or late, must be borne, But 'tis only the Wise and Good that we mourn." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 275 " That's right, father dear, but how can our eyes Distinguish in dead men the Good and the Wise?" "That's easy enough to the stupidest mind: They're poor, and in dying leave nothing behind." " Seest thou in mine eye, father, anything green ? And takest thy son for a gaping marine? Go tell thy fine tale of the Wise and the Good Who are poor, yet lamented, to babes in the wood." And that horrible youth as I hastened away Was building a wink that affronted the day. THE LOST COLONEL " 'Tis a woful yarn," said the sailorman bold Who had sailed the northern lakes " No wofuler one has ever been told, Exceptin' them called ' fakes.' " " Go on, thou son of the wind and fog, For I burn to know the worst! " But his silent lip in a glass of grog Was dreamily immersed. 276 THE COLLECTED WORKS Then he wiped it upon his sleeve and said: " It's never like that I drinks But what of a gallant gent that's dead I truly mournful thinks. " He was a soldier chap leastways As ' Colonel ' he was knew ; An' he hailed from some'rs where they raise A grass that's heavenly blue. " He sailed as a passenger aboard The schooner ' Henery Jo.' O wild the waves and galeses roared, Like taggers in a show! "But he sat at table that calm an' mild As if he never had let His sperit know that the waves was wild An' everlastin' wet! " Jest set with a bottle before his nose, As was labeled ' Total Eclipse ' (The bottle was) an' he frequent rose A glass o' the same to his lips. " An' he says to me ( for the steward slick Of the ' Henery Jo ' was I) : OF AMBROSE BIERCE 277 'This sailor life's the very old Nick On the lakes it's powerful dry! ' " I says : ' Aye, aye, sir, it beats the Dutch. I hopes you'll outlast the trip.' But if I'd been him an' I said as much I'd 'a' took a faster ship. " His laughture, loud an' long an' free, Rang out o'er the tempest's roar. ' You're an elegant reasoner,' says he, ' But it's powerful dry ashore ! ' ' " O mariner man, why pause and don A look of so deep concern? Have another glass go on, go on, For to know the worst I burn." " One day he was leanin' over the rail, When his footing some way slipped, An' (this is the wofulest part o' my tale) He was accidental unshipped! " The empty boats was overboard hove, As he swum in the ' Henery's ' wake ; But 'fore we had 'bouted ship he had drove From sight on the ragin' lake ! " 278 THE COLLECTED WORKS "And so the poor gentleman was drowned And now I'm apprised of the worst." " What ! him ? 'Twas an hour afore he was found- In the yawl stone dead o' thirst ! " FOR TAT O heavenly powers! will wonders never cease ?- Hair upon dogs and feathers upon geese! The boys in mischief and the pigs in mire ! The drinking water wet! the coal on fire! In meadows, rivulets surpassing fair, Forever running, yet forever there! A tail appended to the gray baboon ! A person coming out of a saloon! Last, and of all most marvelous to see, A female Yahoo flinging filth at me ! If 'twould but stick I'd bear upon my coat May Little's proof that she is fit to vote. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 279 A DILEMMA Filled with a zeal to serve my fellow men, For years I criticised their prose and verses: Pointed out all their blunders of the pen, Their shallowness of thought and feeling; then Damned them up hill and down with hearty curses! They said : " That's all that he can do just sneer, And pull to pieces and be analytic. Why doesn't he himself, eschewing fear, Publish a book or two, and so appear As one who has the right to be a critic? " Let him who knows it all forbear to tell How little others know, but show his learning." And then they added: "Who has written well May censure freely " quoting Pope. I fell Into the trap and books began out-turning, Books by the score fine prose and poems fair, And not a book of them but was a terror, They were so great and perfect; though I swear I tried right hard to work in, here and there, (My nature still forbade) a fault or error. 280 THE COLLECTED WORKS "Tis true, some wretches, whom I'd scratched, no doubt, Professed to find but that's a trifling matter. Now, when the flood of noble books was out I raised o'er all that land a joyous shout Till I was thought as mad as any hatter! (Why hatters all are mad, I cannot say. 'Twere wrong in their affliction to revile 'em, But truly, you'll confess 'tis very sad We wear the ugly things they make. Begad, They'd be less mischievous in an asylum!) Consistency, thou art a well, you're paste/ When next I felt my demon in possession, And made the field of authorship a waste, All said of me : " What execrable taste, To rail at others of his own profession ! " Good Lord! where do the critic's rights begin Who has of literature some clear-cut notion, And hears a voice from Heaven say: " Pitch in "? He finds himself alas, poor son of sin Between the devil and the deep blue ocean! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 281 METEMPSYCHOSIS Once with Christ he entered Salem, Once in Moab bullied Balaam, Once by Apuleius staged He the pious much enraged, And, again, his head, as beaver, Topped the neck of Nick the Weaver. Omar saw him (minus tether Free and wanton as the weather: Knowing naught of bit nor spur) Stamping over Bahram-Gur. Now, as Altgeld, see him joy As Governor of Illinois! THE SAINT AND THE MONK Saint Peter at the gate of Heaven displayed The tools and terrors of his awful trade; The key, the frown as pitiless as night, That slays intending trespassers at sight, And, at his side in easy reach, the curled Interrogation points all ready to be hurled. 282 THE COLLECTED WORKS Straight up the shining cloudway (it so chanced No others were about) a soul advanced A fat, orbicular and jolly soul With laughter-lines upon each rosy jowl A monk so prepossessing that the saint Admired him, breathless until weak and faint, Forgot his frown and all his questions too, Foregoing even the customary " Who ? " Threw wide the gate and with a friendly grin Said : " 'Tis a very humble home, but pray walk in.'* The soul smiled pleasantly. " Excuse me, please Who's in there ? " By insensible degrees This impudence dispelled the saint's esteem, As dawning consciousness dispels a dream. The frown began to blacken on his brow, His hand to reach for "Whence?" and "Why?" and "How?" " O, no offense, I hope," the soul explained ; " I'm rather well, particular. I've strained A point in coming here at all ; 'tis said That Susan Anthony (I hear she's dead At last) and all her followers are here. As company, they'd be confess it rather queer." The saint replied, his rising anger past: "What can I do? the law is hard-and-fast, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 283 Albeit unwritten and on earth unknown An oral order issued from the Throne: By but one sin has Woman e'er incurred God's wrath. To accuse Them Loud of that would be absurd." That friar sighed, but, calling up a smile, Said, slowly turning on his heel the while: "Farewell, my friend. Put up the chain and bar I'm going, so please you, where the pretty women are." 1895- IN HIGH LIFE Sir Impycu Lacquit, from over the sea, Has led to the altar Miss Bloatie Bondee. The wedding took place at the Church of St. Blare ; The fashion, the rank, and the wealth were all there. No person was absent of all that one meets: Lord Mammon himself bowed them into their seats, While good Sir John Satan attended the door, And Sexton Beelzebub managed the floor, Respectfully keeping each dog on its rug Preserving the peace between poodle and pug. 284 THE COLLECTED WORKS Twelve bridesmaids escorted the bride up the aisle, To blush in her blush and to smile in her smile; Twelve groomsmen supported the eminent groom, To scowl in his scowl and to gloom in his gloom. The rites were performed by the hand and the lip Of his Grace the Diocesan, Osculo Grip Assisted by three able-bodied divines; He prayed and they grunted, he read, they made signs. Such fashion, such beauty, such gowning, such grace Were ne'er before seen in that heavenly place! That night, full of gin and patrician pride, Sir Impycu blackened the eyes of his bride. A WHIPPER-IN Commissioner of Pensions Dudley has established a Sunday- school and declares he will remove any clerk in his department who does not regularly attend. N. Y. World. Dudley, great placeman, man of mark and note, Worthy of honor from a feeble pen Blunted in service of all true, good men, You serve the Lord in courses, table d'hote: Au nature! ', as well as a la Nick " Eat and be thankful, though it make you sick." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 285 O, truly pious caterer, forbear To push the Saviour and Him crucified (Brochette you'd call it) into their inside Who're all unused to such ambrosial fare. The stomach of the soul makes quick revulsion Of aught that it has taken on compulsion. I search the Scripture, but I do not find That e'er the Spirit beats with angry wings For entrance to the heart, but sits and sings To charm away the scruples of the mind. It says : " Receive me, please ; I'll not compel " Though if you don't you will go straight to Hell! Well, that's compulsion, you will say. 'Tis true: We cower timidly beneath the rod Lifted in menace by an angry God, But won't endure it from an ape like you. Detested simian with thumb prehensile, Switch me and I would brain you with my pencil! Face you the Throne, nor dare to turn your back On its transplendency to flog some wight Who gropes and stumbles in the infernal night Your ugly shadow lays along his track. O, Thou who from the Temple scourged the sin, Behold what rascals try to scourge it in! 286 THE COLLECTED WORKS JUDGMENT I drew aside the Future's veil And saw upon his bier The poet Whitman. Loud the wail And damp the falling tear. " He's dead he is no more ! " one cried, With sobs of sorrow crammed; " No more ? He's this much more," replied Another : " he is damned ! " 1885. A BUBBLE Mrs. Mehitable Marcia Moore Was a dame of superior mind, With a gown which, modestly fitting before, Was greatly puffed up behind. The bustle she wore was ingeniously planned With an inspiration bright: It magnified seven diameters and Was remarkably nice and light. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 287 It was made of rubber and edged with lace And riveted all with brass, And the whole immense interior space Inflated with hydrogen gas. The ladies all said when she hove in view Like the round and rising moon: " She's a stuck up thing! " which was partly true, And men called her the Captive Balloon. To Manhattan Beach for a bath one day She went and she said : " O dear ! If I leave off this what will people say? I shall look so uncommonly queer! " So a costume she had accordingly made To take it all nicely in, And when she appeared in that suit arrayed, She was greeted with many a grin. Proudly and happily looking around, She waded out into the wet; But the water was very, very profound, And her feet and her forehead met! As her bubble drifted away from the shore, On the glassy billows borne, 288 THE COLLECTED WORKS All cried: "Why, where is Mehitable Moore? I saw her go in, I'll be sworn ! " Then the bulb it swelled as the sun grew hot, Till it burst with a sullen roar, And the sea like oil closed over the spot Farewell, O Mehitable Moore! FRANCINE Did I believe the angels soon would call You, my beloved, to the other shore, And I should never see you any more, I love you so I know that I should fall Into dejection utterly, and all Love's pretty pageantry, wherein we bore Twin banners bravely in the tumult's fore, Would seem as shadows idling on a wall. So daintily I love you that my love Endures no rumor of the winter's breath, And only blossoms for it thinks the sky Forever gracious, and the stars above Forever friendly. Even the fear of death Were frost wherein its roses all would die. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 289 AN EXAMPLE They were two deaf mutes. They loved and they Resolved to be groom and bride; And they listened to nothing that any could say, Nor ever a word replied. From wedlock when warned by the married men, Maintain an invincible mind: Be deaf and dumb until wedded and then Be deaf and dumb and blind. REVENGE A spitcat sate on a garden gate And a snapdog fared beneath ; Careless and free was his mien, and he Held a fiddle-string in his teeth. She marked his march, she wrought an arch Of her back and blew up her tail; And her eyes were green as ever were seen, And she uttered a woful wail. 290 THE COLLECTED WORKS The spitcat's plaint was as follows: " It ain't That I am to music a foe; For fiddle-strings bide in my own inside, And I twang them soft and low. " But that dog has trifled with art and rifled A kitten of mine, ah me! That catgut slim was marauded from him: 'Tis the string that men call E." Then she sounded high, in the key of Y, A note that cracked the tombs; And the missiles through the firmament flew From adjacent sleeping-rooms. As her gruesome yell from the gate-post fell She followed it down to earth; And that snapdog wears a placard that bears The inscription : " Blind from birth." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 291 THE GENESIS OF EMBARRASSMENT When Adam first saw Eve he said : " O lovely creature, share my bed." Before consenting, she her gaze Fixed on the greensward to appraise, . As well as vision could avouch, The value of the proffered couch. And seeing that the grass was green And soft and scrupulously clean; Observing that the flow'rs were rare Varieties, and some were fair, The posts of precious woods, and each Bore luscious fruit in easy reach, And all things suited well her worth, She raised her angel eyes from earth To his and, blushing to confess, Murmured : " I love you, Adam yes." Since then her daughters, it is said, Look always down when asked to wed. 292 THE COLLECTED WORKS IN CONTUMACIAM Och! Father McGlynn, Ye appear to be in Fer a bit of a bout wid the Pope; An' there's devil a doubt But he's knockin' ye out While ye're hangin' onto the rope. An' soon ye'll lave home To thravel to Rome, For its bound to Canossa ye are. Persistin' to shtay When ye're ordered away Bedad! that is goin' too far! FROM THE MINUTES When, with the force of a ram that discharges its ponderous body Straight at the rear elevation of the luckless culler of simples, The foot of Herculean Kilgore statesman of surname suggestive OF AMBROSE BIERCE 298 Or carnage unspeakable! lit like a missile solid, prodigious Upon the Congressional door with a monstrous and mighty momentum, Causing the vain ineffective bar to political freedom To fly from its hinges, effacing the nasal excrescence of Dingley, That luckless one, decently veiling the ruin with ready bandanna, Lamented the loss of his eminence, sadly with sobs as follows : "Ah, why was I ever elected to the halls of legislation, So soon to be shown the door with pitiless emphasis? Truly, I've leaned on a broken Reed, and the same has gone back on me meanly. Where now is my prominence, erstwhile in council con spicuous, patent? Alas, I did never before understand what now I see clearly, To wit, that Democracy tends to level all human dis tinctions!" 294 THE COLLECTED WORKS A WOMAN IN POLITICS What, madam, run for School Director? You? And want my vote and influence? Well, well, That beats me! Gad! what are we coming to? In all my life I never have heard tell Of such sublime presumption, and I smell A nigger in the fence! Excuse me, madam; We statesmen sometimes speak like the old Adam. But now you mention it well, well, who knows? We might, that's certain, give the sex a show. I have a cousin teacher. I suppose If I stand in and you're elected no? You'll make no bargains? That's a pretty go! But understand that school administration Belongs to politics, not education. We'll pass the teacher deal ; but it were wise To understand each other at the start. You know my business books and school supplies; You'd hardly, if elected, have the heart Some small advantage to deny me part Of all my profits to be yours. What? "Stealing"? Please don't express yourself with so much feeling. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 295 You pain me, truly. Now one question more. Suppose a fair young man should ask a place As teacher would you (pardon) shut the door Of the Department in his handsome face Until I know not how to put the case Would you extort a kiss to pay your favor? Good Lord! you laugh? I thought the matter graver. Well, well, we can't do business, I suspect: A woman has no head for politics. My profitable offers you reject And will not promise anything to fix Things right that civic saints and angels mix. Good morning. Stay I'm chaffing you, conceitedly. Madam, I mean to vote for you repeatedly. A BALLAD OF PIKEVILLE Down in Southern Arizona where the Gila monster thrives, And the " Mescalero," gifted with a hundred thousand lives, Every hour renounces one of them by drinking liquid flame The assassinating wassail that has given him his name; Where the enterprising dealer in Caucasian hair is seen To hold his harvest festival upon the village-green, While the late lamented tenderfoot upon the plain is spread With a sanguinary circle on the summit of his head; Where the cactuses (or cacti) lift their lances in the sun, And incautious jackass-rabbits come to sorrow as they run, Lived a colony of settlers old Missouri was the State Where they formerly resided at a prehistoric date. Now, the spot that had beeen chosen for this colonizing scheme Was as waterless, believe me, as an Arizona stream. The soil was naught but ashes, by the breezes driven free, And an acre and a quarter were required to sprout a pea. So agriculture languished, for the land would not pro duce, And for lack of water, whisky was the beverage in use Costly whisky, hauled in wagons many a weary, weary day, Mostly needed by the drivers to sustain them on their way. Wicked whisky! King of Evils! Why, O why did God create Such a curse and thrust it on us in our inoffensive state ? OF AMBROSE BIERCE 297 Once a parson came among them, and a holy man was he; With his ailing stomach whisky wouldn't anywise agree; So he knelt upon the mesa and he prayed with all his chin That the Lord would send them water or incline their hearts to gin. Scarcely was the prayer concluded ere an earthquake shook the land, And with copious effusion springs burst out on every hand! Merrily the waters gurgled, and the shock which gave them birth Fitly was by some declared a temperance movement of the earth. Astounded by the miracle, the people met that night To celebrate it properly by some religious rite; And 'tis truthfully recorded that before the moon had sunk Every man and every woman were devotionally drunk. A half a standard gallon (says history) per head Of the best Kentucky prime was at that ceremony shed. O the glory of that country! O the happy, happy folk By the might of prayer delivered from Nature's iron yoke! Lo! the plains to the horizon all are yellowing with rye, And the corn upon the hill-top lifts its banners to the sky! 298 THE COLLECTED WORKS Gone the wagons, gone the drivers, and the road is grown to grass, Over which the incalescent Bourbon did aforetime pass. Pikeville (that's the name they've given, in their wild, romantic way, To that irrigation district) now distills, statistics say, Something like a hundred gallons, out of each recurrent crop, To the head of population and consumes it, every drop ! AN AUGURY Upon my desk a single spray, With starry blossoms fraught. I write in many an idle way, Thinking one serious thought. " O flowers, a fine Greek name ye bear, And with a fine Greek grace." (Be still, O heart that turns to share The sunshine of a face.) " Have ye no messages no brief, Still sign: * Despair,' or ' Hope '? " A sudden stir of stem and leaf A breath of heliotrope 1 OF AMBROSE BIERCE 299 LUSUS POLITICUS Come in, old gentleman. How do you do? Delighted, I'm sure, that you've called. I'm a sociable sort of a chap and you Are a pleasant-appearing person, too, With a head agreeably bald. That's right sit down in the scuttle of coal And put up your feet in a chair. It is better to have them there; And I've always said that a hat of lead, Such as I see you wear, Is a better hat than a hat of glass. And your boots of brass Are a natural kind of boots, I swear. " May you wipe your nose on a paper of pins? " Why, certainly, man, why not? I rather expected you'd do so before, When I saw you poking it in at the door. It's dev'lish hot The weather, I mean. " You are twins?" Why, that was evident at the start, From the way that you paint your head In stripes of purple and red, With dots of yellow. That proves you a fellow With a love of legitimate art. 300 THE COLLECTED WORKS " You've bitten a snake and are feeling bad " ? That's very sad, But Longfellow's words I beg to recall: Your lot is the common lot of all. " Horses are trees and the moon is a sneeze " ? That, I fancy, is just as you please. Some think that way, and others hold The contrary view; I never quite knew, For the matter o' that, When everything has been said. May I offer this mat If you will stand on your head? I suppose I look to be upside down From your present point of view. It's a giddy old world, from king to clown. And a topsy-turvy, too. But, worthy and now uninverted old man, You're built, at least, on a normal plan If ever a truth I spoke. Smoke ? Your air and conversation Are a liberal education, And your clothes, including the metal hat And the brazen boots what's that? " You never could stomach a Democrat Since General Jackson ran? OF AMBROSE BIERCE 301 You're another sort, but you predict That your party'll get consummately licked?" Good God ! what a queer old man 1 BEREAVEMENT A Countess (so they tell the tale) Who dwelt of old in Arno's vale, Where ladies, even of high degree, Know more of love than of A, B, C, Came once with a prodigious bribe Unto the learned village scribe, That most discreet and honest man Who wrote for all the lover clan, Nor e'er a secret had betrayed Save when inadequately paid. " Write me," she sobbed " I pray thee do A book about the Prince di Giu A book of poetry in praise Of all his works and all his ways; The godlike grace of his address, His more than woman's tenderness, His courage stern and lack of guile, The loves that wantoned in his smile. So great he was, so rich and kind, I'll not within a fortnight find 302 THE COLLECTED WORKS His equal as a lover. O, My God ! I shall be drowned in woe ! " "What! Prince di Giu is dead?" exclaimed The honest man for letters famed, The while he pocketed her gold; " Of what? if I may be so bold." Fresh storms of tears the lady shed : " I stabbed him fifty times," she said. A PICKBRAIN What! imitate me, friend? Suppose that you With agony and difficulty do What I do easily what then? You've got A style I heartily wish / had not. If I from lack of sense and you from choice Grieve the judicious and the unwise rejoice, No equal censure our deserts will suit We both are fools, but you're an ape to boot! THE NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR He looked upon the ships as they All idly lay at anchor, Their sides with gorgeous workmen gay The riveter and planker OF AMBROSE BIERCE 303 Republicans and Democrats, Statesmen and politicians. He saw the swarm of prudent rats Swimming for land positions. He marked each " belted cruiser " fine, Her poddy life-belts floating In tether where the hungry brine Impinged upon her coating. He noted with a proud regard, As any of his class would, The poplar mast and poplar yard Above the hull of bass-wood. He saw the Eastlake frigate tall, With quaintly carven gable, Hip-roof and dormer-window all With ivy formidable. In short, he saw our country's hope In best of all conditions Equipped, to the last spar and rope, By working politicians. He boarded then the noblest ship And from the harbor glided. " Adieu, adieu ! " fell from his lip. Verdict: "He suicided." iSSi. 304 THE COLLECTED WORKS DETECTED In Congress once great Mowther shone, Debating weighty matters; Now into an asylum thrown, He vacuously chatters. If in that legislative hall His wisdom still he'd vented, It never had been known at all That Mowther was demented. BIMETALISM Ben Bulger was a silver man, Though not a mine had he: He thought it were a noble plan To make the coinage free. " There hain't for years been sech a time," Said Ben to his bull pup, " For biz the country's broke and I'm The hardest kind of up. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 305 " The paper says that that's because The silver coins is sca'ce, And that the chaps which makes the laws Puts gold ones in their place. " They says them nations always be Most prosperatin* where The wolume of the currency Ain't so disgustin' rare." His dog, which hadn't breakfasted, Dissented from his view, And wished that he could swell, instead, The volume of cold stew. " Nobody'd put me up," said Ben, "With patriot galoots Which benefits their feller men By playin' warious roots; " But havin' all the tools about, I'm goin' to commence A-turnin' silver dollars out Wuth eighty-seven cents. " The feller takin' 'em can't whine ; (No more, likewise, can I) : They're better than the genooine, Which mostly satisfy. 306 THE COLLECTED WORKS " It's only makin' coinage free, And mebby might augment The wolume of the currency A noomerous per cent." I don't quite see his error nor Malevolence prepense, But fifteen years they gave him for That technical offense. TWO METHODS To bucks and ewes by the Good Shepherd fed The Priest delivers masses for the dead, And even from estrays outside the fold Death for the masses he would not withhold. The Parson, loth alike to free or kill, Forsakes the souls already on the grill, And, God's prerogative of mercy shamming, Spares living sinners for a harder damning. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE Observe, dear Lord, what lively pranks Are played by sentimental cranks! First this one mounts his hinder hoofs And brays the chimneys off the roofs; Then that one, with exalted voice, Expounds the thesis of his choice, Our understandings to bombard, Till all the window panes are starred! A third augments the vocal shock Till steeples to their bases rock, Confessing, as they humbly nod, They hear and mark the will of God. A fourth in oral thunder vents His pinching penury of sense Till dogs with sympathetic howls, And lowing cows, and cackling fowls, Hens, geese, and all domestic birds, Attest the terror of his words. Cranks thus their intellects deflate Of theories about the State. This one avers 'tis built on Truth, And that on Temperance. This youth Declares that Science bears the pile; That graybeard, with a holy smile, Says Faith is the supporting stone ; While women swear that Love alone Could so unflinchingly endure The heavy load. And some are sure The solemn state of Christian Wedlock Is the indubitable bedrock. 308 THE COLLECTED WORKS Physicians once about the bed Of one whose life was nearly sped Blew up a disputatious breeze About the cause of his disease : This, that and t'other thing they blamed. " Tut, tut ! " the dying man exclaimed, "What made me ill I do not care; You've not an ounce of it, I'll swear. And if you had the skill to make it I'd see you hanged before I'd take it! " AN IMPOSTOR Must you, Carnegie, evermore explain Your worth, and all the reasons give again Why black and red are similarly white And you and God identically right? Still must our ears without redress submit To hear you play the solemn hypocrite Walking in spirit some high moral level, Raising at once his eye-balls and the devil? Great King of Cant! if Nature had but made Your mouth without a tongue I ne'er had prayed To have an earless head. Since she did not, Bear me, ye whirlwinds, to some favored spot Some mountain pinnacle that sleeps in air So delicately, mercifully rare OF AMBROSE BIERCE 309 That when the fellow climbs that giddy hill, As, for my sins, I know at last he will, To utter twaddle in that void inane His soundless organ he will play in vain. FRANCE Unhappy State! with horrors still to strive: Thy Hugo dead, thy Boulanger alive; A Prince who'd govern where he dares not dwell, And who for power would his birthright sell Who, eager o'er his enemies to reign, Grabs at the scepter and conceals the chain ; While pugnant factions mutually strive By cutting throats to keep the land alive. Perverse in passion, as in pride perverse To all a mistress, to thyself a curse; Sweetheart of Europe! every sun's embrace Matures the charm and poison of thy grace. Yet time to thee nor peace nor wisdom brings: In blood of citizens and blood of kings The stones of thy stability are set, And the fair fabric trembles at a threat. 310 THE COLLECTED WORKS A GUEST Death, are you well ? I trust you have no cough That's painful or in any way annoying No kidney trouble that may carry you off, Nor heart disease to keep you from enjoying Your meals and ours. 'Twere very sad indeed To have to quit the busy life you lead. You've been quite active lately for so old A person, and not very strong-appearing. I'm apprehensive, somehow, that my bold, Bad brother gave you trouble in the spearing. And my two friends I fear, sir, that you ran Quite hard for them, especially the man. I crave your pardon : 'twas no fault of mine ; If you are overworked I'm sorry, very. Come in, old man, and have a glass of wine. What shall it be madeira, port or sherry? What! just a mug of blood? That's funny grog To ask a friend for, eh? Well, take it, hog! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 311 A FALSE PROPHECY Dom Pedro, Emperor of far Brazil (Whence coffee comes, arid the three-cornered nut) They say that you're imperially ill, And threatened with paralysis. Tut-tut! Though Emperors are mortal, nothing but A nimble thunderbolt could catch and kill A man predestined to depart this life By the assassin's bullet, bomb or knife. Sir, once there was a President who freed Four million slaves; and once there was a Czar Who freed ten times as many serfs. Sins breed The means of punishment, and tyrants are Hurled headlong out of the triumphal car If faster than the law allows they speed. Lincoln and Alexander struck a rut; You freed slaves too. Paralysis! tut-tut. 1885. 312 THE COLLECTED WORKS A SONG OF THE MANY God's people sorely were oppressed, I heard their lamentations long; I hear their singing, clear and strong, I see their banners in the West! The captains shout the battle-cry, The legions muster in their might; They turn their faces to the light, They lift their arms, they testify: " We sank beneath the masters' thong, Our chafing chains were ne'er undone; Now clash your lances in the sun And bless your banners with a song ! " God bides His time with patient eyes WTiile tyrants build upon the land ; He lifts His face, He lifts His hand, And from the stones His temples rise. "Now Freedom waves her joyous wing Beyond the foemen's shields of gold. March forward singing, for, behold, The right shall rule while God is King ! " OF AMBROSE BIERCE 313 ONE MORNING Because that I am weak, my love, and ill I cannot follow the impatient feet Of my desire, but sit and watch the beat Of the unpitying pendulum fulfill The hour appointed for the air to thrill And brighten at your coming. O my sweet, The tale of moments is at last complete The tryst is broken on the gusty hill! O lady, faithful-footed, loyal-eyed, The long leagues silence me; yet doubt me not: Think rather that the clock and sun have lied And all too early you have sought the spot. For lo! despair has darkened all the light, And till I see your face it still is night. THE KING OF BORES Abundant bores afflict this world, and some Are bores of magnitude that come and no, They're always coming, but they never go Like funeral pageants, as they drone and hum Their lurid nonsense like a muffled drum, 314 THE COLLECTED WORKS Or bagpipe's dread, unnecessary flow. But one superb tormentor I can show Prince Fiddlefaddle, Due de Feefawfum. He the johndonkey is who, when I pen Amorous verses in an idle mood To nobody, or of her, reads them through And, smirking, says he knows the lady; then Calls me sly dog. I wish he understood This tender sonnet's application too. HISTORY What wrecked the Roman power? One says vice, Another indolence, another dice. Emascle says polygamy. " Not so," Says Impycu " 'twas luxury and show." The parson, lifting up a brow of brass, Swears superstition gave the coup de grace. Great Allison, the statesman-chap affirms 'Twas lack of coin (croaks Medico: " 'Twas worms! ") And John P. Jones the swift suggestion collars, Averring the no coins were silver dollars. Thus, through the ages, each presuming quack Turns the poor corpse upon its rotten back, OF AMBROSE BIERCE 315 Holds a new " autopsy " and finds that death Resulted partly from the want of breath, But chiefly from some visitation sad That points his argument to serve his fad. They're all in error never human mind The cause of the disaster has divined. What slew the Roman power? Well, provided You'll keep the secret, I will tell you. I did. THE HERMIT To a. hunter from the city, Overtaken by the night, Spake, in tones of tender pity For himself, an aged wight: " I have found the world a 'fountain Of deceit and Life a sham. I have taken to the mountain And a Holy Hermit am. " Sternly bent on Contemplation, Far apart from human kind In the hill my habitation, In the Infinite my mind. 316 THE COLLECTED WORKS " Ten long years I've lived a dumb thing, Growing bald and bent with dole, Vainly seeking for a Something To engage my gloomy soul. " Gentle Pilgrim, while my roots you Eat, and quaff my simple drink, Please suggest whatever suits you As a Theme for me to Think." Then the hunter answered gravely: " From distraction free, and strife, You could ponder very bravely On the Vanity of Life." "O, thou wise and learned Teacher, You have solved the Problem well You have saved a grateful creature From the agonies of Hell! "Take another root, another Cup of water: eat and drink. Now I have a Subject, brother, Tell me what, and how, to think." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 317 THE YEARLY LIE A merry Christmas? Prudent, as I live! You wish me something that you need not give. Merry or sad, what does it signify? To you 'tis equal if I laugh, or die. Your hollow greeting, like a parrot's jest, Finds all its meaning in the ear addressed. Why "merry" Christmas? Faith, I'd rather frown Than grin and caper like a tickled clown. When fools are merry the judicious weep; The wise are happy only when asleep. A present? Pray you give it to disarm A man more powerful to do you harm. 'Twas not your motive? Well, I cannot let You pay for favors that you'll never get. Perish the ancient custom of the gift, Founded in terror and maintained in thrift I What men of honor need to aid their weal They purchase, or, occasion serving, steal. 318 THE COLLECTED WORKS Go celebrate the day with turkeys, pies, Sermons and psalms and, for the children, lies. Let Santa Claus descend again the flue; If Baby doubt it, swear that it is true. " A lie well stuck to is as good as truth," And God's too old to legislate for youth. Hail Christmas! On my knees and fowl I fall; For greater grace and better gravy call. Vive I'Humbug! that's to say, God bless us all! AN APOLOGUE A traveler observed one day A loaded fruit-tree by the way, And reining in his horse exclaimed: " The man is greatly to be blamed Who, careless of good morals, leaves Temptation in the way of thieves. Now lest some villain pass this way And by this fruit be led astray To bag it, I will kindly pack It snugly in my saddle-sack." He did so; then that Salt o' the Earth Rode on, rejoicing in his worth. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 319 DIAGNOSIS Cried Allen Forman: "Doctor, pray Compose my spirit's strife: O what may be my chances, say, Of living all my life? " For lately I have dreamed of high And hempen dissolution! O doctor, doctor, how can I Amend my constitution ? " The learned leech replied: "You're young And beautiful and strong Permit me to inspect your tongue: H'm, ah, ahem! 'tis long." FALLEN O, hadst thou died when thou wert great, When at thy feet a nation knelt To sob the gratitude it felt And thank the Saviour of the State, Gods might have envied thee thy fate! Then was the laurel round thy brow, And friend and foe spake praise of thee, While all our hearts sang victory. Alas ! thou art too base to bow To hide the shame that brands it now. 320 THE COLLECTED WORKS DIES IIUE A recent republication of the late Gen. John A. Dix's dis appointing translation of this famous medieval hymn, together with some researches into its history, which I happened to be making at the time, induces me to undertake a translation myself. It may seem presumption in me to attempt that which so many eminent scholars of so many generations have at tempted before me; but failure of others encourages me to hope that success, being still unachieved, is still achievable. The fault of many translations, from Lord Macaulay's to that of Gen. Dix, has been, I venture to think, a too strict literal- ness, whereby the delicate irony and subtle humor of the im mortal poem though doubtless these admirable qualities were valued by the translators have been sacrificed in the result. In none of the English versions that I have examined is more than a trace of the mocking spirit of insincerity pervading the whole prayer, the cool effrontery of the suppliant in enumerating his demerits, his serenely illogical demands of salvation in spite, or rather because, of them, his meek sub mission to the punishment of others, and the many similarly pleasing characteristics of this amusing work being most imper- DIES Dies free! dies ilia! Solvet saeclum in favilla Teste David cum Sibylla. Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando Judex est venturus. Cuncta stricte discussurus. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 321 fectly conveyed. By permitting myself a reasonable freedom of rendering in many cases boldly supplying that "missing link" between the sublime and the ridiculous which the au thor, writing for the acute monkish apprehension of the thir teenth century, did not deem it necessary to insert I have hoped at least partly to liberate the lurking devil of humo* from his letters, letting him caper, not, certainly, as he does in the Latin, but as he probably would have done had his cre ator written in English. In preserving the meter and trochaic rhymes of the original, I have acted from the same reverent regard for the music with which, in the liturgy of the Church, the verses have become inseparably wedded that inspired Gen. Dix; seeking rather to surmount the obstacles to success by honest effort, than to avoid them by adopting an easier versi fication which would have deprived my version of all utility in religious service I must bespeak the reader's charitable consideration in re spect 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 repre sented merely by the names of those conspicuous personal qualities to which they probably owed their powers of proph ecy, as Samson's strength lay in his hair. 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! 322 THE COLLECTED WORKS Tuba mirum spargens sonum Per sepulchra regionem, Coget omnes ante thronum. Mors stupebit, et Natura, Quum resurget creatura Judfcanti responsura. Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continetur, Unde mundus judicetur. Judex ergo quum sedebit, Quicquid latet apparebit, Nil inultum remanebit. Quid sum miser tune dicturus, Quern patronem rogaturus, Quum vix Justus sit securus? Rex tremenda; majestatis, Qui salvandos salvas gratis; Salva me, Fons pietatis. Recordare, Jesu pie, Quod sum causa tuae viae; Ne me perdas ilia die. Quaerens me sedisti lassus Redemisti crucem passus, Tantus labor non sit cassus. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 323 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 Saviour, Mine the playful hand that gave your Death-blow. Pardon such behavior. Seeking me, fatigue assailed thee, Calvary's outlook naught availed thee; Now 'twere cruel if I failed thee. 324 THE COLLECTED WORKS Juste Judex ultionis, Donum fac remissionis Ante diem rationis. Ingemisco tanquam reus, Culpa rubet vultus meus; Supplicant! 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 ilia Qua resurget et favilla, Judicandus homo reus, Huic ergo parce, Deus! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 325 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 forgavest 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. 326 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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 'tis 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. OP AMBROSE BIERCE 327 SOMETHING IN THE PAPERS What's in the paper?" O, 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. 'Tis 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? 328 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 329 ONE PRESIDENT "What are those, father?" "Statesmen, my child Lachrymose, 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 and superior 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." 330 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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. He 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 that 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." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 331 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 suppplied, There was 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, 332 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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 shining yellow 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 as he drew his final breath, He thought he saw with sorrow Some persons weeping for his death Who'd be all smiles to-morrow. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 333 A NIGHTMARE I dreamed that I was dead. The years went by: The world remembered gratefully that I Had lived and written, although other names Once hailed with homage, had in 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 noble tree to view. 'Twas sacred to my memory and fame But Julian Hawthorne's wittol daughter came And with untidy finger daubed upon Its bark a reeking record of her 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! 334 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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 'Twere 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. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 335 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 Neros? 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 'twas 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!) 336 THE COLLECTED WORKS But more magnanimous. My lads, 'tis plain 'Twas an uncommon riot; The warlike tribes of Europe fight for gain; 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 treason 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. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 337 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 plot, 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. 1891. 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 'Twas all unconscious; in the sun It ran and prattled just for fun. 338 THE COLLECTED WORKS Keen to allay his inward throes, The beast immersed his filthy nose And drank then, bloated by the stream, And filled with superheated steam, Exploded with a rascal smell, Remarking, as his fragments fell Astonished in the brook: " I'm thinking This water's damned unwholesome drinking ! " AGAIN Well, I've met her again at the Mission. She'd told me to see her no more ; It was not a command a petition ; I'd granted it once before. Yes, granted it, hoping she'd write me, Repenting her virtuous freak Subdued myself daily and nightly For the better part of a week. And then ('twas my duty to spare her The shame of recalling me) I Just sought her again to prepare her For an everlasting good-bye. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 339 O that evening of bliss shall I ever Cease living it over? although She said, when 'twas ended: "You're never To see me again. And now go." As we parted with kisses 'twas human And natural for me to smile As I thought, " She's in love, and a woman : She'll send for me after a while." But she didn't; so well, the old Mission Is fine, picturesque and gray; 'Tis an excellent place for contrition And sometimes she passes that way. That's how it occurred that I met her, And that's all there is to tell Except that I'd like to forget her Calm way of remarking : " I'm well." It was hardly worth while, all this keying My soul to such tensions and stirs To learn that her food was agreeing With that little stomach of hers. 340 THE COLLECTED WORKS HOMO PODUNKENSIS As the poor ass that from his paddock strays Might sound abroad his field-companions' praise, Recounting volubly their well-bred leer, Their port impressive and their wealth of ear, Mistaking for the world's assent the clang Of echoes mocking his accurst harangue; So the dull clown, untraveled though at large, Visits the city on the ocean's marge, Expands his eyes and marvels to remark Each coastwise schooner and each alien bark; Prates of " all nations ", wonders as he stares That native merchants sell imported wares, Nor comprehends how in his very view A foreign vessel has a foreign crew; Yet, faithful to the hamlet of his birth, Swears it superior to aught on earth, Sighs for the temples locally renowned, The village school-house and the village pound, And chalks upon the palaces of Rome The peasant sentiments of " Home, Sweet Home I " OF AMBROSE BIERCE 341 A SOCIAL CALL Well, well, old Father Christmas, is it you, With your thick neck and thin pretense of virtue? Less redness in the nose nay, even some blue, Would not, I think, particularly hurt you. When seen close to, not mounted in your car, You look the drunkard and the pig you are. No matter, sit you down, for I am not In a gray study, as you sometimes find me. Merry? O, no, nor wish to be, God wot, But there's another year of pain behind me. That's something to be thankful for: the more There are behind, the fewer are before. I know you, Father Christmas, for a scamp, But Heaven endowed me at my soul's creation With an affinity to every tramp That walks the world and steals its admiration. For admiration is, like linen left Upon the line, got easiest by theft. Good God ! old man, just think of it ! I've stood, With brains and honesty, some five-and-twenty Long years as champion of all that's good, And taken on the mazzard thwacks a-plenty. 342 THE COLLECTED WORKS Yet now whose praises do the people bawl ? Those of the fellows whom I live to maul. Why, this is odd ! the more I try to talk Of you, the more my tongue grows egotistic To prattle of myself ! I'll try to balk Its waywardness and be more altruistic. So let us speak of others how they sin, And what a devil of a state they're in ! That's all I have to say. Good-bye, old man. Next year you possibly may find me scolding Or miss me altogether: Nature's plan Includes, as I suppose, a final folding Of these poor empty hands. Then drop a tear To think they'll never box another ear. MY DAY OF LIFE I know not how it is it seems Fantastic and surprising That after all these dreams and dreams, Here in the sun's first level beams, The sun "is still just rising! When first he showed his sovereign face, And bade the night-folk scuttle OF AMBROSE BIERCE 843 Back to their holes, I took my place Here on the hill, and Go'd His grace Sent slumber soft and subtle. Among the poppies red and white, I've lain and drowsed, for all it Appears a sluggardly delight. I must have had a wakeful night, Though, faith, I don't recall it. And, O I've dreamed so many things! One hardly can unravel The tangled web of visionings That slumber-of-the-morning brings: Play, study, work and travel; The love of women (mostly those Were fairest that were newest) ; Hard knocks from friends and other foes: Compacts with men (my memory shows The deadest are the truest) ; War what a hero I became By merely dreaming battle! Athwart the field of letters, Fame Blared through the brass my weary name With an ominous death-rattle. 344 BIERCE'S COLLECTED WORKS Such an eternity of thought Within a minute's fraction! Such phantoms out of nothing wrought, And fading suddenly to naught As I awake to action! They scamper each into its hole, These dreams of my begetting. They've had their moment; take, my soul, Thy day of life. . . . Gods! this is droll That thieving sun is setting! SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS A KING OF CRAFT Here lies Sam Chamberlain ; his fatal smile Survives its wielder for a little while In nightmares of the prudent few who fled The Judas kisses that it heralded Those all are dreamless who stood still to view The smile that stayed them for the stab that slew. Against his God his warfare now is o'er: His bloodless heart (no colder than before) No longer with a mute ambition swells To run a half-a-hundred little Hells. With ever a polite, perfidious art A dove in manner and a snake in heart, This titmouse Machiavelli ne'er again Will feel the urge, the passion and the strain To prove it true that one may smile and smile And be a Chamberlain the blessed while. Sharp at both ends, his secret soul Was like a double-headed mole Equipped with equal nose to prod This way or that beneath the sod. Conjecture fitted to confound If seen a moment out of ground 347 348 THE COLLECTED WORKS Its former, as its future, route The matter of a vain dispute, Save where a dunghill's lure supplied Its aid the riddle to decide. When that occurred (his nearer nose Pointing the way with happier throes) He sought it as a bee the rose. And as that robber daubs its thighs With pollen till it cannot rise, So he, with glutted mind, remained Inert, and Christ arose and reigned. We raise the stone, we carve the solemn word, The sign of promise and the symbol grim; His voice and vice are in the land unheard Yet all is doubtful that relates to him. No more he twirls his smile to work us woe ; We saw him put a fathom under sod: Flung down at last but so was Aaron's rod. We hope he's dead, but only this we know: He does not smile. O glory be to God! STEPHEN DORSEY Flee, heedless stranger, from this spot accurst, Where rests in Satan an offender first In point of greatness, as in point of time, Of new-school rascals who proclaim their crime. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 349 Skilled with a frank loquacity to blab The dark arcana of each mighty grab, And famed for lying from his early youth, He sinned secure behind a veil of truth. Some lock their lips upon their deeds ; some write A damning record and conceal from sight; Some, with a lust of speaking, die to quell it. His way to keep a secret was to tell it. MR. JUSTICE FIELD Here sleeps one of the greatest students Of jurisprudence. Nature endowed him with the gift Of juristhrift. All points of law alike he threw The dice to settle. Those honest cubes were loaded true With railway metal. GENERAL B. F. BUTLER Thy flesh to earth, thy soul to God, We gave, O gallant brother; And o'er thy grave the awkward squad Fired into one another! 350 THE COLLECTED WORKS REPARATION Beneath this monument which rears its head, A giant note of admiration dead, His life extinguished like a taper's flame, John Ericsson is lying in his fame. Behold how massive is the lofty shaft; How fine the product of the sculptor's craft; The gold how lavishly applied; the great Man's statue how impressive and sedate! Think what the cost was ! It would ill become Our modesty to specify the sum ; Suffice it that a fair per cent, we're giving Of what we robbed him of when he was living. DISINCORPORATED Of Corporal Tanner the head and the trunk Are here in unconsecrate ground duly sunk. His legs in the South claim the patriot's tear, But, stranger, you needn't be blubbering here. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 351 A KIT Here Ingalls, sorrowing, has laid The tools of his infernal trade His pen and tongue. So sharp they grew, And such destruction from them flew, His hand was wounded when he wrote, And when he spoke he cut his throat. DISJUNCTUS Within this humble mausoleum Poor Guiteau's flesh you'll find. His bones are kept in a museum, And Tillman has his mind. A TRENCHER-KNIGHT Stranger, uncover ; here you have in view The monument of Chauncey M. Depew, Eater and orator, the whole world round For feats of tongue and tooth alike renowned. Dining his way to eminence, he rowed X 352 THE COLLECTED WORKS With knife and fork up water-ways that flowed From lakes of favor pulled with all his force And found each river sweeter than the source. Like rats, obscure beneath a kitchen floor, Gnawing and rising till obscure no more, He ate his way to eminence, and Fame Inscribes in gravy his immortal name. A trencher-knight, he, mounte'd on his belly, So spurred his charger that its sides were jelly. Grown desperate at last, it reared and threw him, And Indigestion, overtaking, slew him. A VICE-PRESIDENT Here the remains of Schuyler Coif ax lie ; Born, all the world knows when, and God knows why. In '71 he rilled the public eye, In '72 he bade the world good-bye; In God's good time, with a protesting sigh, He came to life just long enough to die. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 353 A WASTED LIFE Of Morgan here lies the unspirited clay, Who secrets of Masonry swore to betray. He joined the great Order and studied with zeal The awful arcana he meant to reveal. At last in chagrin by his own hand he fell There was nothing to learn, there was nothing to tell. The Masons are said to have killed him. Not so Even a secret so foul, they're compelled to forego. THE SCRAP HEAP POESY Successive bards pursue Ambition's fire That shines, Oblivion, above thy mire. The latest mounts his predecessor's trunk, And sinks his brother ere himself is sunk. So die ingloriously Fame's elite, But dams of dunces keep the line complete. HOSPITALITY Why ask me, Gastrogogue, to dine, (Unless to praise your rascal wine) Yet never ask some luckless sinner Who needs, as I do not, a dinner? MAGNANIMITY " To the will of the people we loyally bow i " That's the minority shibboleth now. O noble antagonists, answer me flat What would you do if you didn't do that? 857 358 THE COLLECTED WORKS UNDERSTATED " I'm sorry I married," says Upton Sinclair: " The conjugal status is awful! The devil's device, a delusion and snare." Worse, far worse than that it is lawful! AN ATTORNEY-GENERAL Philander Knox! I know him by the sound; His sleep, unlike his learning, is profound. No dreams of duty mar his loud repose, Nor strain the cobwebs tethering his nose, Which, roaring ever like the solemn sea, Proclaims to all the world that this is he. In thought a tortoise but in act a hare, Slow to decide and impotent to dare, Yet no important crisis he ignores, But sleeps upon it, and for action snores. FINANCIAL NEWS Says Rockefeller: "Money is not tight," And, faith, I'm thinking that the man is right. If it were not, at least in morals, loose He hardly could command it for his use. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 359 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 extolling psalms Before their sovereign execute salaams; The freeman scorns one idol to adore Tom, Dick, and Harry and himself are four. 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. 360 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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." OF AMBROSE BIERCE 361 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." 362 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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. 364 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 365 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. 366 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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 illwill 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. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 367 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. 368 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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? " OF AMBROSE BIERCE 369 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." 370 THE COLLECTED WORKS A PIOUS RITE On Maun'day 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. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 371 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 J 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. 372 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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. 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! OF AMBROSE BIERCE 373 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 " H&wthorne " 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. 374 THE COLLECTED WORKS 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. OF AMBROSE BIERCE 375 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. 376 BIERCE'S COLLECTED WORKS SEPULTURE " Let's bury the hatchet," said Miller to Platt; And Platt said to Miller: " I'll gladly do that." On its grave, Warner Miller, the grasses grow not, But the wind in your hair whistles over the spot. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 161951 WAY 3 1 19581 RECEIVED AM 7-4 A to UfiL 3 11965 ID-tJRC OEC09198TI DEC 05 1987 FormL-9-15w-7,'31 S UCLA-Young Research Library PS1097 .8529 L 009 497 420 1 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY