Black Beetles in Amber, Ambrose Bierce [read with me .txt] 📗

him rudely to divide
The queue that was a pagan's pride,
And in addition certify
The Faith by making fur to fly
From pelt as well as pate?

But, Heavenly Father, thou dost know
That in this town these actions go
For nothing worth a name.
Nay, every editorial ass,
To prove they never come to pass
Will damn his soul eternally,
Although in his own journal he
May read the printed shame.

From bloody hands the reins of pow'r
Fall slack; the high-decisive hour
Strikes not for liars' ears.
Remove, O Father, the disgrace
That stains our California's face,
And consecrate to human good
The strength of her young womanhood
And all her golden years!



DE YOUNG--A PROPHECY

Running for Senator with clumsy pace,
He stooped so low, to win at least a place,
That Fortune, tempted by a mark so droll,
Sprang in an kicked him to the winning pole.



TO EITHER

Back further than
I know, in San
Francisco dwelt a wealthy man.
So rich was he
That none could be
Wise, good and great in like degree.

'Tis true he wrought,
In deed or thought,
But few of all the things he ought;
But men said: "Who
Would wish him to?
Great souls are born to be, not do!"

One thing, indeed,
He did, we read,
Which was becoming, all agreed:
Grown provident,
Ere life was spent
He built a mighty monument.

For longer than
I know, in San
Francisco lived a beggar man;
And when in bed
They found him dead--
"Just like the scamp!" the people said.

He died, they say,
On the same day
His wealthy neighbor passed away.
What matters it
When beggars quit
Their beats? I answer: Not a bit.

They got a spade
And pick and made
A hole, and there the chap was laid.
"He asked for bread,"
'Twas neatly said:
"He'll get not even a stone instead."

The years rolled round:
His humble mound
Sank to the level of the ground;
And men forgot
That the bare spot
Was like (and was) the beggar's lot.

Forgotten, too,
Was t'other, who
Had reared the monument to woo
Inconstant Fame,
Though still his name
Shouted in granite just the same.

That name, I swear,
They both did bear
The beggar and the millionaire.
That lofty tomb,
Then, honored--whom?
For argument here's ample room.

I'll not debate,
But only state
The scamp first claimed it at the Gate.
St. Peter, proud
To serve him, bowed
And showed him to the softest cloud.



DISAPPOINTMENT

The Senate woke; the Chairman's snore
Was stilled, its echoes balking;
The startled members dreamed no more,
For Steele, who long had held the floor,
Had suddenly ceased talking.

As, like Elijah, in his pride,
He to his seat was passing,
"Go up thou baldhead!" Reddy cried.
Then six fierce bears ensued and tried
To sunder him for "sassing."

Two seized his legs, and one his head,
The fourth his trunk, to munch on;
The fifth preferred an arm instead;
The last, with rueful visage, said:
"Pray what have _I_ for luncheon?"

Then to that disappointed bear
Said Steele, serene and chipper,
"My friend, you shall not lack your share:
Look in the Treasury, and there
You'll find his other flipper."



THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF THEFT

In fair Yosemite, that den of thieves
Wherein the minions of the moon divide
The travelers' purses, lo! the Devil grieves,
His larger share as leader still denied.

El Capitan, foreseeing that _his_ reign
May be disputed too, beclouds his head.
The joyous Bridal Veil is torn in twain
And the crepe steamer dangles there instead.

The Vernal Fall abates her pleasant speed
And hesitates to take the final plunge,
For rumors reach her that another greed
Awaits her in the Valley of the Sponge.

The Brothers envy the accord of mind
And peace of purpose (by the good deplored
As honor among Commissioners) which bind
That confraternity of crime, the Board.

The Half-Dome bows its riven face to weep,
But not, as formerly, because bereft:
Prophetic dreams afflict him when asleep
Of losing his remaining half by theft.

Ambitious knaves! has not the upper sod
Enough of room for every crime that crawls
But you must loot the Palaces of God
And daub your filthy names upon the walls?



DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

Within my dark and narrow bed
I rested well, new-laid:
I heard above my fleshless head
The grinding of a spade.

A gruffer note ensued and grew
To harsh and harsher strains:
The poet Welcker then I knew
Was "snatching" my remains.

"O Welcker, let your hand be stayed
And leave me here in peace.
Of your revenge you should have made
An end with my decease."

"Hush, Mouldyshanks, and hear my moan:
I once, as you're aware,
Was eminent in letters--known
And honored everywhere.

"My splendor made all Berkeley bright
And Sacramento blind.
Men swore no writer e'er could write
Like me--if I'd a mind.

"With honors all insatiate,
With curst ambition smit,
Too far, alas! I tempted fate--
I _published_ what I'd writ!

"Good Heaven! with what a hunger wild
Oblivion swallows fame!
Men who have known me from a child
Forget my very name!

"Even creditors with searching looks
My face cannot recall;
My heaviest one--he prints my books--
Oblivious most of all.

"O I should feel a sweet content
If one poor dun his claim
Would bring to me for settlement,
And bully me by name.

"My dog is at my gate forlorn;
It howls through all the night,
And when I greet it in the morn
It answers with a bite!"

"O Poet, what in Satan's name
To me's all this ado?
Will snatching me restore the fame
That printing snatched from you?"

"Peace, dread Remains; I'm not about
To do a deed of sin.
I come not here to hale you out--
I'm trying to get in."



THE LAST MAN

I dreamed that Gabriel took his horn
On Resurrection's fateful morn,
And lighting upon Laurel Hill
Blew long, blew loud, blew high and shrill.
The houses compassing the ground
Rattled their windows at the sound.
But no one rose. "Alas!" said he,
"What lazy bones these mortals be!"
Again he plied the horn, again
Deflating both his lungs in vain;
Then stood astonished and chagrined
At raising nothing but the wind.
At last he caught the tranquil eye
Of an observer standing by--
Last of mankind, not doomed to die.
To him thus Gabriel: "Sir, I pray
This mystery you'll clear away.
Why do I sound my note in vain?
Why spring they not from out the plain?
Where's Luning, Blythe and Michael Reese,
Magee, who ran the _Golden Fleece?_
Where's Asa Fisk? Jim Phelan, who
Was thought to know a thing or two
Of land which rose but never sank?
Where's Con O'Conor of the Bank,
And all who consecrated lands
Of old by laying on of hands?
I ask of them because their worth
Was known in all they wished--the earth.
Brisk boomers once, alert and wise,
Why don't they rise, why don't they rise?"
The man replied: "Reburied long
With others of the shrouded throng
In San Mateo--carted there
And dumped promiscuous, anywhere,
In holes and trenches--all misfits--
Mixed up with one another's bits:
One's back-bone with another's shin,
A third one's skull with a fourth one's grin--
Your eye was never, never fixed
Upon a company so mixed!
Go now among them there and blow:
'Twill be as good as any show
To see them, when they hear the tones,
Compiling one another's bones!
But here 'tis vain to sound and wait:
Naught rises here but real estate.
I own it all and shan't disgorge.
Don't know me? I am Henry George."



ARBOR DAY

Hasten, children, black and white--
Celebrate the yearly rite.
Every pupil plant a tree:
It will grow some day to be
Big and strong enough to bear
A School Director hanging there.



THE PIUTE

Unbeautiful is the Piute!
Howe'er bedecked with bravery,
His person is unsavory--
Of soap he's destitute.

He multiplies upon the earth
In spite of all admonishing;
All censure his astonishing
And versatile unworth.

Upon the Reservation wide
We give for his inhabiting
He goes a-jackass rabbiting
To furnish his inside.

The hopper singing in the grass
He seizes with avidity:
He loves its tart acidity,
And gobbles all that pass.

He penetrates the spider's veil,
Industriously pillages
The toads' defenseless villages,
And shadows home the snail.

He lightly runs to earth the quaint
Red worm and, deftly troweling,
He makes it with his boweling
Familiarly acquaint.

He tracks the pine-nut to its lair,
Surrounds it with celerity,
Regards it with asperity--
Smiles, and it isn't there!

I wish he'd open up a grin
Of adequate vivacity
And carrying capacity
To take his Agent in.



FAME

He held a book in his knotty paws,
And its title grand read he:
"The Chronicles of the Kings" it was,
By the History Companee.
"I'm a monarch," he said
(But a tear he shed)
"And my picter here you