Ambrose Bierce - Shapes of Clay

The way was long, the hill was steep,
My footing scarcely I could keep.
The night enshrouded me in gloom,
I heard the ocean's distant boom—
The trampling of the surges vast
Was borne upon the rising blast.
"God help the mariner," I cried,
"Whose ship to-morrow braves the tide!"
Then from the impenetrable dark
A solemn voice made this remark:
"For this locality—warm, bright;
Barometer unchanged; breeze light."
"Unseen consoler-man," I cried,
"Whoe'er you are, where'er abide,
"Thanks—but my care is somewhat less
For Jack's, than for my own, distress.
"Could I but find a friendly roof,
Small odds what weather were aloof.
"For he whose comfort is secure
Another's woes can well endure."
"The latch-string's out," the voice replied,
"And so's the door—jes' step inside."
Then through the darkness I discerned
A hovel, into which I turned.
Groping about beneath its thatch,
I struck my head and then a match.
A candle by that gleam betrayed
Soon lent paraffinaceous aid.
A pallid, bald and thin old man
I saw, who this complaint began:
"Through summer suns and winter snows
I sets observin' of my toes.
"I rambles with increasin' pain
The path of duty, but in vain.
"Rewards and honors pass me by—
No Congress hears this raven cry!"
Filled with astonishment, I spoke:
"Thou ancient raven, why this croak?
"With observation of your toes
What Congress has to do, Heaven knows!
"And swallow me if e'er I knew
That one could sit and ramble too!"
To answer me that ancient swain
Took up his parable again:
"Through winter snows and summer suns
A Weather Bureau here I runs.
"I calls the turn, and can declare
Jes' when she'll storm and when she'll fair.
"Three times a day I sings out clear
The probs to all which wants to hear.
"Some weather stations run with light
Frivolity is seldom right.
"A scientist from times remote,
In Scienceville my birth is wrote.
"And when I h'ist the 'rainy' sign
Jes' take your clo'es in off the line."
"Not mine, O marvelous old man,
The methods of your art to scan,
"Yet here no instruments there be—
Nor 'ometer nor 'scope I see.
"Did you (if questions you permit)
At the asylum leave your kit?"
That strange old man with motion rude
Grew to surprising altitude.
"Tools (and sarcazzems too) I scorns—
I tells the weather by my corns.
"No doors and windows here you see—
The wind and m'isture enters free.
"No fires nor lights, no wool nor fur
Here falsifies the tempercher.
"My corns unleathered I expose
To feel the rain's foretellin' throes.
"No stockin' from their ears keeps out
The comin' tempest's warnin' shout.
"Sich delicacy some has got
They know next summer's to be hot.
"This here one says (for that he's best):
'Storm center passin' to the west.'
"This feller's vitals is transfixed
With frost for Janawary sixt'.
"One chap jes' now is occy'pied
In fig'rin on next Fridy's tide.
"I've shaved this cuss so thin and true
He'll spot a fog in South Peru.
"Sech are my tools, which ne'er a swell
Observatory can excel.
"By long a-studyin' their throbs
I catches onto all the probs."
Much more, no doubt, he would have said,
But suddenly he turned and fled;
For in mine eye's indignant green
Lay storms that he had not foreseen,
Till all at once, with silent squeals,
His toes "caught on" and told his heels.

Yes, he was that, or that, as you prefer—
Did so and so, though, faith, it wasn't all;
Lived like a fool, or a philosopher.
And had whatever's needful for a fall.
As rough inflections on a planet merge
In the true bend of the gigantic sphere,
Nor mar the perfect circle of its verge,
So in the survey of his worth the small
Asperities of spirit disappear,
Lost in the grander curves of character.
He lately was hit hard: none knew but I
The strength and terror of that ghastly stroke—
Not even herself. He uttered not a cry,
But set his teeth and made a revelry;
Drank like a devil—staining sometimes red
The goblet's edge; diced with his conscience; spread,
Like Sisyphus, a feast for Death, and spoke
His welcome in a tongue so long forgot
That even his ancient guest remembered not
What race had cursed him in it. Thus my friend
Still conjugating with each failing sense
The verb "to die" in every mood and tense,
Pursued his awful humor to the end.
When like a stormy dawn the crimson broke
From his white lips he smiled and mutely bled,
And, having meanly lived, is grandly dead.

It is pleasant to think, as I'm watching my ink
A-drying along my paper,
That a monument fine will surely be mine
When death has extinguished my taper.
From each rhyming scribe of the journalist tribe
Purged clean of all sentiments narrow,
A pebble will mark his respect for the stark
Stiff body that's under the barrow.
By fellow-bards thrown, thus stone upon stone
Will make my celebrity deathless.
O, I wish I could think, as I gaze at my ink,
They'd wait till my carcass is breathless.

O ye who push and fight
To hear a wanton sing—
Who utter the delight
That has the bogus ring,—
O men mature in years,
In understanding young,
The membranes of whose ears
She tickles with her tongue,—
O wives and daughters sweet,
Who call it love of art
To kiss a woman's feet
That crush a woman's heart,—
O prudent dams and sires,
Your docile young who bring
To see how man admires
A sinner if she sing,—
O husbands who impart
To each assenting spouse
The lesson that shall start
The buds upon your brows,—
All whose applauding hands
Assist to rear the fame
That throws o'er all the lands
The shadow of its shame,—
Go drag her car!—the mud
Through which its axle rolls
Is partly human blood
And partly human souls.
Mad, mad!—your senses whirl
Like devils dancing free,
Because a strolling girl
Can hold the note high C.
For this the avenging rod
Of Heaven ye dare defy,
And tear the law that God
Thundered from Sinai!

Why ask me, Gastrogogue, to dine
(Unless to praise your rascal wine)
Yet never ask some luckless sinner
Who needs, as I do not, a dinner?

Let lowly themes engage my humble pen—
Stupidities of critics, not of men.
Be it mine once more the maunderings to trace
Of the expounders' self-directed race—
Their wire-drawn fancies, finically fine,
Of diligent vacuity the sign.
Let them in jargon of their trade rehearse
The moral meaning of the random verse
That runs spontaneous from the poet's pen
To be half-blotted by ambitious men
Who hope with his their meaner names to link
By writing o'er it in another ink
The thoughts unreal which they think they think,
Until the mental eye in vain inspects
The hateful palimpsest to find the text.
The lark ascending heavenward, loud and long
Sings to the dawning day his wanton song.
The moaning dove, attentive to the sound,
Its hidden meaning hastens to expound:
Explains its principles, design—in brief,
Pronounces it a parable of grief!
The bee, just pausing ere he daubs his thigh
With pollen from a hollyhock near by,
Declares he never heard in terms so just
The labor problem thoughtfully discussed!
The browsing ass looks up and clears his whistle
To say: "A monologue upon the thistle!"
Meanwhile the lark, descending, folds his wing
And innocently asks: "What!—did I sing?"
O literary parasites! who thrive
Upon the fame of better men, derive
Your sustenance by suction, like a leech,
And, for you preach of them, think masters preach,—
Who find it half is profit, half delight,
To write about what you could never write,—
Consider, pray, how sharp had been the throes
Of famine and discomfiture in those
You write of if they had been critics, too,
And doomed to write of nothing but of you!
Lo! where the gaping crowd throngs yonder tent,
To see the lion resolutely bent!
The prosing showman who the beast displays
Grows rich and richer daily in its praise.
But how if, to attract the curious yeoman,
The lion owned the show and showed the showman?