Ambrose Bierce Poems

Be pleased, O Lord, to take a people's thanks
That Thine avenging sword has spared our ranks-
That Thou hast parted from our lips the cup
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Goddess of Liberty! O thou
Whose tearless eyes behold the chain,
And look unmoved upon the slain,
Eternal peace upon thy brow,-
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Mrs. Mehitable Marcia Moore
Was a dame of superior mind,
With a gown which, modestly fitting before,
Was greatly puffed up behind.
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Munhall, to save my soul you bravely try,
Although, to save my soul, I can't say why.
'Tis naught to you, to me however much
Why, bless it! you might save a million such
Yet lose your own; for still the 'means of grace'
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'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?'
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Filled with a zeal to serve my fellow men,
For years I criticised their prose and verges:
Pointed out all their blunders of the pen,
Their shallowness of thought and feeling; then
Damned them up hill and down with hearty curses!
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Nay, Peter Robertson, 'tis not for you
To blubber o'er Max Taubles for he's dead.
By Heaven! my hearty, if you only knew
How better is a grave-worm in the head
Than brains like yours-how far more decent, too,
A tomb in far Corea than a bed
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Once I seen a human ruin
In a elevator-well.
And his members was bestrewin'
All the place where he had fell.
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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.
...

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
...