Black Beetles in Amber - Ambrose Bierce (smallest ebook reader .TXT) 📗

love a dog.

Thus in my dream the golden reign
Of Reason filled the world again,
And all mankind confessed her sway,
From Walnut Creek to San Jose.



THE UNFALLEN BRAVE

Not all in sorrow and in tears,
To pay of gratitude's arrears
The yearly sum--
Not prompted, wholly by the pride
Of those for whom their friends have died,
To-day we come.

Another aim we have in view
Than for the buried boys in blue
To drop a tear:
Memorial Day revives the chin
Of Barnes, and Salomon chimes in--
That's why we're here.

And when in after-ages they
Shall pass, like mortal men, away,
Their war-song sung,
Then fame will tell the tale anew
Of how intrepidly they drew
The deadly tongue.

Then cull white lilies for the graves
Of Liberty's loquacious braves,
And roses red.
Those represent their livers, these
The blood that in unmeasured seas
They did not shed.



A CELEBRATED CASE

Way down in the Boom Belt lived Mrs. Roselle;
A person named Petrie, he lived there as well;
But Mr. Roselle he resided away--
Sing tooral iooral iooral iay.

Once Mrs. Roselle in her room was alone:
The flesh of her flesh and the bone of her bone
Neglected the wife of his bosom to woo--
Sing tooral iooral iooral ioo.

Then Petrie, her lover, appeared at the door,
Remarking: "My dear; I don't love you no more."
"That's awfully rough," said the lady, "on me--
Sing tooral iooral iooral iee."

"Come in, Mr. Petrie," she added, "pray do:
Although you don't love me no more, I love you.
Sit down while I spray you with vitriol now--
Sing tooral iooral iooral iow."

Said Petrie: "That liquid I know won't agree
With my beauty, and then you'll no longer love me;
So spray and be "--O, what a word he did say!--
Sing tooral iooral iooral iay.

She deluged his head and continued to pour
Till his bonny blue eyes, like his love, were no more.
It was seldom he got such a hearty shampoo--
Sing tooral iooral iooral ioo.

Then Petrie he rose and said: "Mrs. Roselle,
I have an engagement and bid you farewell."
"You see," she began to explain--but not he!--
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iee.

The Sheriff he came and he offered his arm,
Saying, "Sorry I am for disturbin' you, marm,
But business is business." Said she, "So they say--
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iay."

The Judge on the bench he looked awfully stern;
The District Attorney began to attorn;
The witnesses lied and the lawyers--O my!--
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iyi.

The chap that defended her said: "It's our claim
That he loved us no longer and told us the same.
What else than we did could we decently do?--
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral ioo."

The District Attorney, sarcastic, replied:
"We loved you no longer--that can't be denied.
Not having no eyes we may dote on you now--
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral iow."

The prisoner wept to entoken her fears;
The sockets of Petrie were flooded with tears.
O heaven-born Sympathy, bully for you!--
Sing tooral, iooral, iooral ioo.

Four jurors considered the prisoner mad,
And four thought her victim uncommonly bad,
And four that the acid was all in his eye--
Sing rum tiddy iddity iddity hi.



COUPLETS

Intended for Inscription on a Sword Presented to Colonel Cutting of the National Guard of California.


I am for Cutting. I'm a blade
Designed for use at dress parade.
My gleaming length, when I display
Peace rules the land with gentle sway;
But when the war-dogs bare their teeth
Go seek me in the modest sheath.
I am for Cutting. Not for me
The task of setting nations free.
Let soulless blades take human life,
My softer metal shuns the strife.
The annual review is mine,
When gorgeous shopmen sweat and shine,
And Biddy, tip-toe on the pave,
Adores the cobble-trotting brave.
I am for Cutting. 'Tis not mine
To hew amain the hostile line;
Not mine all pitiless to spread
The plain with tumuli of dead.
My grander duty lies afar
From haunts of the insane hussar,
Where charging horse and struggling foot
Are grimed alike with cannon-soot.
When Loveliness and Valor meet
Beneath the trees to dance, and eat,
And sing, and much beside, behold
My golden glories all unfold!
There formidably are displayed
The useful horrors of my blade
In time of feast and dance and ballad,
I am for cutting chicken salad.



A RETORT

As vicious women think all men are knaves,
And shrew-bound gentlemen discourse of slaves;
As reeling drunkards judge the world unsteady
And idlers swear employers ne'er get ready--
Thieves that the constable stole all they had,
The mad that all except themselves are mad;
So, in another's clear escutcheon shown,
Barnes rails at stains reflected from his own;
Prates of "docility," nor feels the dark
Ring round his neck--the Ralston collar mark.
Back, man, to studies interrupted once,
Ere yet the rogue had merged into the dunce.
Back, back to Yale! and, grown with years discreet,
The course a virgin's lust cut short, complete.
Go drink again at the Pierian pool,
And learn--at least to better play the fool.
No longer scorn the draught, although the font,
Unlike Pactolus, waters not Belmont.



A VISION OF RESURRECTION

I had a dream. The habitable earth--
Its continents and islands, all were bare
Of cities and of forests. Naught remained
Of its old aspect, and I only knew
(As men know things in dreams, unknowing how)
That this was earth and that all men were dead.
On every side I saw the barren land,
Even to the distant sky's inclosing blue,
Thick-pitted all with graves; and all the graves
Save one were open--not as newly dug,
But rather as by some internal force
Riven for egress. Tombs of stone were split
And wide agape, and in their iron decay
The massive mausoleums stood in halves.
With mildewed linen all the ground was white.
Discarded shrouds upon memorial stones
Hung without motion in the soulless air.
While greatly marveling how this should be
I heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice,
Low like an angel's, delicately strong,
And sweet as music.

--"Spirit," it said, "behold
The burial place of universal Man!
A million years have rolled away since here
His sheeted multitudes (save only some
Whose dark misdeeds required a separate
And individual arraignment) rose
To judgment at the trumpet's summoning
And passed into the sky for their award,
Leaving behind these perishable things
Which yet, preserved by miracle, endure
Till all are up. Then they and all of earth,
Rock-hearted mountain and storm-breasted sea,
River and wilderness and sites of dead
And vanished capitals of men, shall spring
To flame, and naught shall be for evermore!
When all are risen that wonder will occur.
'Twas but ten centuries ago the last
But one came forth--a soul so black with sin,
Against whose name so many crimes were set
That only now his trial is at end.
But one remains."

Straight, as the voice was stilled--
That single rounded mound cracked lengthliwise
And one came forth in grave-clothes. For a space
He stood and gazed about him with a smile
Superior; then laying off his shroud
Disclosed his two attenuated legs
Which, like parentheses, bent outwardly
As by the weight of saintliness above,
And so sprang upward and was lost to view
Noting his headstone overthrown, I read:
"Sacred to memory of George K. Fitch,
Deacon and Editor--a holy man
Who fell asleep in Jesus, full of years
And blessedness. The dead in Christ rise first."



MASTER OF THREE ARTS

Your various talents, Goldenson, command
Respect: you are a poet and can draw.
It is a pity that your gifted hand
Should ever have been raised against the law.
If you had drawn no pistol, but a picture,
You would have saved your throttle from a stricture.

About your poetry I'm not so sure:
'Tis certain we have much that's quite as bad,
Whose hardy writers have not to endure
The hangman's fondling. It is said they're mad:
Though lately Mr. Brooks (I mean the poet)
Looked well, and if demented didn't show it.

Well, Goldenson, I am a poet, too--
Taught by the muses how to smite the harp
And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you
And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp.
But let me say, with no desire to taunt you,
I never murder even the girls I want to.

I hold it one of the poetic laws
To sing of life, not take. I've ever shown
A high regard for human life because
I have such trouble to support my own.
And you--well, you'll find trouble soon in blowing
Your private coal to keep it red and glowing.

I fancy now I see you at the Gate
Approach St. Peter, crawling on your belly,
You cry: "Good sir, take pity on my state--
Forgive the murderer of Mamie Kelly!"
And Peter says: "O, that's all right--but, mister,
You scribbled rhymes. In Hell I'll make you
blister!"



THERSITES

So, in the Sunday papers _you_, Del Mar,
Damn, all great Englishmen in English speech?
I am no Englishman, but in my reach
A rogue shall never rail where heroes are.

You are the man, if I mistake you not,
Who lately with a supplicating twitch
Plucked at the pockets of the London rich
And paid your share-engraver all you got.

Because that you have greatly lied, because
You libel nations, and because no hand
Of officer is raised to bid you stand,
And falsehood is unpunished of the laws,

I stand here in a public place to mark
With level finger where you part the crowd--
I stand to name you and to cry aloud:
"Behold mendacity's great hierarch!"



A SOCIETY LEADER

"The Social World"! O what a world it is--
Where full-grown men cut capers in the German,
Cotillion, waltz, or what you will, and whizz
And spin and hop and sprawl about like mermen!
I wonder if our future Grant or Sherman,
As these youths pass their time, is passing his--
If eagles ever come from painted eggs,
Or deeds of arms succeed to deeds of legs.

I know they tell us about Waterloo:
How, "foremost fighting," fell the evening's
dancers.
I don't believe it: I regard it true
That soldiers who are skillful in "the Lancers"
Less often die of cannon than of cancers.
Moreover, I am half-persuaded, too,
That David when he danced before the Ark
Had the reporter's word to keep it dark.

Ed. Greenway, you fatigue. Your hateful name
Like maiden's curls, is in the papers daily.
You think it, doubtless, honorable fame,
And contemplate the cheap distinction gaily,
As does the monkey the blue-painted tail he
Believes becoming to him. 'Tis the