Ambrose Bierce - Shapes of Clay

"O warrior with the burnished arms—
With bullion cord and tassel—
Pray tell me of the lurid charms
Of service and the fierce alarms:
The storming of the castle,
The charge across the smoking field,
The rifles' busy rattle—
What thoughts inspire the men who wield
The blade—their gallant souls how steeled
And fortified in battle."
"Nay, man of peace, seek not to know
War's baleful fascination—
The soldier's hunger for the foe,
His dread of safety, joy to go
To court annihilation.
Though calling bugles blow not now,
Nor drums begin to beat yet,
One fear unmans me, I'll allow,
And poisons all my pleasure: How
If I should get my feet wet!"

His poems Riley says that he indites
Upon an empty stomach. Heavenly Powers,
Feed him throat-full: for what the beggar writes
Upon his empty stomach empties ours!

Because you call yourself Knights Templar, and
There's neither Knight nor Temple in the land,—
Because you thus by vain pretense degrade
To paltry purposes traditions grand,—
Because to cheat the ignorant you say
The thing that's not, elated still to sway
The crass credulity of gaping fools
And women by fantastical display,—
Because no sacred fires did ever warm
Your hearts, high knightly service to perform—
A woman's breast or coffer of a man
The only citadel you dare to storm,—
Because while railing still at lord and peer,
At pomp and fuss-and-feathers while you jeer,
Each member of your order tries to graft
A peacock's tail upon his barren rear,—
Because that all these things are thus and so,
I bid you welcome to our city. Lo!
You're free to come, and free to stay, and free
As soon as it shall please you, sirs—to go.

"Sas agapo sas agapo,"
He sang beneath her lattice.
"'Sas agapo'?" she murmured—"O,
I wonder, now, what that is!"
Was she less fair that she did bear
So light a load of knowledge?
Are loving looks got out of books,
Or kisses taught in college?
Of woman's lore give me no more
Than how to love,—in many
A tongue men brawl: she speaks them all
Who says "I love," in any.

"O father, I saw at the church as I passed
The populace gathered in numbers so vast
That they couldn't get in; and their voices were low,
And they looked as if suffering terrible woe."
"'Twas the funeral, child, of a gentleman dead
For whom the great heart of humanity bled."
"What made it bleed, father, for every day
Somebody passes forever away?
Do the newspaper men print a column or more
Of every person whose troubles are o'er?"
"O, no; they could never do that—and indeed,
Though printers might print it, no reader would read.
To the sepulcher all, soon or late, must be borne,
But 'tis only the Wise and the Good that all mourn."
"That's right, father dear, but how can our eyes
Distinguish in dead men the Good and the Wise?"
"That's easy enough to the stupidest mind:
They're poor, and in dying leave nothing behind."
"Seest thou in mine eye, father, anything green?
And takest thy son for a gaping marine?
Go tell thy fine tale of the Wise and the Good
Who are poor and lamented to babes in the wood."
And that horrible youth as I hastened away
Was building a wink that affronted the day.

"'Tis a woeful yarn," said the sailor man bold
Who had sailed the northern-lakes—
"No woefuler one has ever been told
Exceptin' them called 'fakes.'"
"Go on, thou son of the wind and fog,
For I burn to know the worst!"
But his silent lip in a glass of grog
Was dreamily immersed.
Then he wiped it on his sleeve and said:
"It's never like that I drinks
But what of the gallant gent that's dead
I truly mournful thinks.
"He was a soldier chap—leastways
As 'Colonel' he was knew;
An' he hailed from some'rs where they raise
A grass that's heavenly blue.
"He sailed as a passenger aboard
The schooner 'Henery Jo.'
O wild the waves and galeses roared,
Like taggers in a show!
"But he sat at table that calm an' mild
As if he never had let
His sperit know that the waves was wild
An' everlastin' wet!—
"Jest set with a bottle afore his nose,
As was labeled 'Total Eclipse'
(The bottle was) an' he frequent rose
A glass o' the same to his lips.
"An' he says to me (for the steward slick
Of the 'Henery Jo' was I):
'This sailor life's the very old Nick—
On the lakes it's powerful dry!'
"I says: 'Aye, aye, sir, it beats the Dutch.
I hopes you'll outlast the trip.'
But if I'd been him—an' I said as much—
I'd 'a' took a faster ship.
"His laughture, loud an' long an' free,
Rang out o'er the tempest's roar.
'You're an elegant reasoner,' says he,
'But it's powerful dry ashore!'"
"O mariner man, why pause and don
A look of so deep concern?
Have another glass—go on, go on,
For to know the worst I burn."
"One day he was leanin' over the rail,
When his footing some way slipped,
An' (this is the woefulest part o' my tale),
He was accidental unshipped!
"The empty boats was overboard hove,
As he swum in the 'Henery's wake';
But 'fore we had 'bouted ship he had drove
From sight on the ragin' lake!"
"And so the poor gentleman was drowned—
And now I'm apprised of the worst."
"What! him? 'Twas an hour afore he was found—
In the yawl—stone dead o' thirst!"

O, heavenly powers! will wonders never cease?—
Hair upon dogs and feathers upon geese!
The boys in mischief and the pigs in mire!
The drinking water wet! the coal on fire!
In meadows, rivulets surpassing fair,
Forever running, yet forever there!
A tail appended to the gray baboon!
A person coming out of a saloon!
Last, and of all most marvelous to see,
A female Yahoo flinging filth at me!
If 'twould but stick I'd bear upon my coat
May Little's proof that she is fit to vote.

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!
They said: "That's all that he can do—just sneer,
And pull to pieces and be analytic.
Why doesn't he himself, eschewing fear,
Publish a book or two, and so appear
As one who has the right to be a critic?
"Let him who knows it all forbear to tell
How little others know, but show his learning."
The public added: "Who has written well
May censure freely"—quoting Pope. I fell
Into the trap and books began out-turning,—
Books by the score—fine prose and poems fair,
And not a book of them but was a terror,
They were so great and perfect; though I swear
I tried right hard to work in, here and there,
(My nature still forbade) a fault or error.
'Tis true, some wretches, whom I'd scratched, no doubt,
Professed to find—but that's a trifling matter.
Now, when the flood of noble books was out
I raised o'er all that land a joyous shout,
Till I was thought as mad as any hatter!
(Why hatters all are mad, I cannot say.
'T were wrong in their affliction to revile 'em,
But truly, you'll confess 'tis very sad
We wear the ugly things they make. Begad,
They'd be less mischievous in an asylum!)
"Consistency, thou art a"—well, you're paste !
When next I felt my demon in possession,
And made the field of authorship a waste,
All said of me: "What execrable taste,
To rail at others of his own profession!"
Good Lord! where do the critic's rights begin
Who has of literature some clear-cut notion,
And hears a voice from Heaven say: "Pitch in"?
He finds himself—alas, poor son of sin—
Between the devil and the deep blue ocean!