Ambrose Bierce Poems

Liars for witnesses; for lawyers brutes
Who lose their tempers to retrieve their suits;
Cowards for jurors; and for judge a clown
Who ne'er took up the law, yet lays it down;
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Lord, shed thy light upon his desert path,
And gild his branded brow, that no man spill
His forfeit life to balk thy holy will
That spares him for the ripening of wrath.
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Why should he not have been allowed
To thread with peaceful feet the crowd
Which filled that Christian street?
The Decalogue he had observed,
From Faith in Jesus had not swerved,
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Well, Mr. Kemble, you are called, I think,
A great divine, and I'm a great profane.
You as a Congregationalist blink
Some certain truths that I esteem a gain,
And dropp them in the coffers of my brain,
Pleased with the pretty music of their chink.
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So, Beecher's dead. His 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.
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Hail, blessed Blunder! golden idol, hail!
Clay-footed deity of all who fail.
Celestial image, let thy glory shine,
Thy feet concealing, but a lamp to mine.
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'Sas agapo sas agapo,'
He sang beneath her lattice.
''Sas agapo'?' she murmured-'O,
I wonder, now, what _that_ is!'
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So, Governor, you would not serve again
Although we'd all agree to pay you double.
You find it all is vanity and pain
One clump of clover in a field of stubble
One grain of pleasure in a peck of trouble.
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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.
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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.
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