Shapes of Clay by Ambrose Bierce (best short novels of all time txt) 📕

I saw--'twas in a dream, the other night--
A man whose hair with age was thin and white:
One hundred years had bettered by his birth,
And still his step was firm, his eye was bright.

Before him and about him pressed a crowd.
Each head in reverence was bared and bowed,
And Jews and Gentiles in a hundred tongues
Extolled his deeds and spoke his fame aloud.

I joined the throng and, pushing forward, cried,
"Montefiore!" with the rest, and vied
In efforts to caress the hand that ne'er
To want and worth had charity denied.

So closely round him swarmed our shouting clan
He scarce could breathe, and taking from a pan
A gleaming coin he tossed it o'er our heads,
And in a moment was a lonely man!





A WARNING.

Cried Age to Youth: "Abate your speed!--
The distance hither's brief indeed."
But Youth pressed on without delay--
The shout had reached but half the way.





DISCRETION.

SHE:

I'm told that men have sometimes got
Too confidential, and
Have said to one another what
They--well, you understand.
I hope I don't offend you, sweet,
But are you sure that _you're_ discreet?

HE:

'Tis true, sometimes my friends in wine
Their conquests _do_ recall,
But none can truly say that mine
Are known to him at all.
I never, never talk you o'er--
In truth, I never get the floor.





AN EXILE.

'Tis the census enumerator
A-singing all forlorn:
It's ho! for the tall potater,
And ho! for the clustered corn.
The whiffle-tree bends in the breeze and the fine
Large eggs are a-ripening on the vine.

"Some there must be to till the soil
And the widow's weeds keep down.
I wasn't cut out for rural toil
But they _won't_ let me live in town!
They 're not so many by two or three,
As they think, but ah! they 're too many for me."

Thus the census man, bowed down with care,
Warbled his wood-note high.
There was blood on his brow and blood in his hair,
But he had no blood in his eye.





THE DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT.

Baffled he stands upon the track--
The automatic switches clack.

Where'er he turns his solemn eyes
The interlocking signals rise.

The trains, before his visage pale,
Glide smoothly by, nor leave the rail.

No splinter-spitted victim he
Hears uttering the note high C.

In sorrow deep he hangs his head,
A-weary--would that he were dead.

Now suddenly his spirits rise--
A great thought kindles in his eyes.

Hope, like a headlight's vivid glare,
Splendors the path of his despair.

His genius shines, the clouds roll back--
"I'll place obstructions on the track!"





PSYCHOGRAPHS.

Says Gerald Massey: "When I write, a band
Of souls of the departed guides my hand."
How strange that poems cumbering our shelves,
Penned by immortal parts, have none themselves!





TO A PROFESSIONAL EULOGIST.

Newman, in you two parasites combine:
As tapeworm and as graveworm too you shine.
When on the virtues of the quick you've dwelt,
The pride of residence was all you felt
(What vain vulgarian the wish ne'er knew
To paint his lodging a flamboyant hue?)
And when the praises of the dead you've sung,
'Twas appetite, not truth, inspired your tongue;
As ill-bred men when warming to their wine
Boast of its merit though it be but brine.
Nor gratitude incites your song, nor should--
Even charity would shun you if she could.
You share, 'tis true, the rich man's daily dole,
But what you get you take by way of toll.
Vain to resist you--vermifuge alone
Has power to push you from your robber throne.
When to escape you he's compelled to die
Hey! presto!--in the twinkling of an eye
You vanish as a tapeworm, reappear
As graveworm and resume your curst career.
As host no more, to satisfy your need
He serves as dinner your unaltered greed.
O thrifty sycophant of wealth and fame,
Son of servility and priest of shame,
While naught your mad ambition can abate
To lick the spittle of the rich and great;
While still like smoke your eulogies arise
To soot your heroes and inflame our eyes;
While still with holy oil, like that which ran
Down Aaron's beard, you smear each famous man,
I cannot choose but think it very odd
It ne'er occurs to you to fawn on God.





FOR WOUNDS.

O bear me, gods, to some enchanted isle
Where woman's tears can antidote her smile.





ELECTION DAY.

Despots effete upon tottering thrones
Unsteadily poised upon dead men's bones,
Walk up! walk up! the circus is free,
And this wonderful spectacle you shall see:
Millions of voters who mostly are fools--
Demagogues' dupes and candidates' tools,
Armies of uniformed mountebanks,
And braying disciples of brainless cranks.
Many a week they've bellowed like beeves,
Bitterly blackguarding, lying like thieves,
Libeling freely the quick and the dead
And painting the New Jerusalem red.
Tyrants monarchical--emperors, kings,
Princes and nobles and all such things--
Noblemen, gentlemen, step this way:
There's nothing, the Devil excepted, to pay,
And the freaks and curios here to be seen
Are very uncommonly grand and serene.

No more with vivacity they debate,
Nor cheerfully crack the illogical pate;
No longer, the dull understanding to aid,
The stomach accepts the instructive blade,
Nor the stubborn heart learns what is what
From a revelation of rabbit-shot;
And vilification's flames--behold!
Burn with a bickering faint and cold.

Magnificent spectacle!--every tongue
Suddenly civil that yesterday rung
(Like a clapper beating a brazen bell)
Each fair reputation's eternal knell;
Hands no longer delivering blows,
And noses, for counting, arrayed in rows.

Walk up, gentlemen--nothing to pay--
The Devil goes back to Hell to-day.





THE MILITIAMAN.

"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!"





"A LITERARY METHOD."

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!





A WELCOME.

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.





A SERENADE.

"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.





THE WISE AND GOOD.

"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