Ambrose Bierce
Decalogue
Thou shalt no God but me adore: ‘Twere too expensive to have more. No images nor idols make For Roger Ingersoll to break. Take not God’s name in vain: select A time when it
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
Safety-Clutch
Once I seen a human ruin In a elevator-well. And his members was bestrewin’ All the place where he had fell. And I says, apostrophisin’ That uncommon woful wreck: “Your position’s so surprisin’ That
Rimer
The rimer quenches his unheeded fires, The sound surceases and the sense expires. Then the domestic dog, to east and west, Expounds the passions burning in his breast. The rising moon o’er that enchanted
Elegy
The cur foretells the knell of parting day; The loafing herd winds slowly o’er the lea; The wise man homewards plods; I only stay To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.
An Inscription
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.
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.
Freedom
Freedom, as every schoolboy knows, Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell; On every wind, indeed, that blows I hear her yell. She screams whenever monarchs meet, And parliaments as well, To bind the chains about
Alone
In contact, lo! the flint and steel, By sharp and flame, the thought reveal That he the metal, she the stone, Had cherished secretly alone. Booley Fito.
Weather
Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see, And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar