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

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.





THE LOST COLONEL.

"'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!"





FOR TAT.

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.





A DILEMMA.

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!





METEMPSYCHOSIS.

Once with Christ he entered Salem,
Once in Moab bullied Balaam,
Once by Apuleius staged
He the pious much enraged.
And, again, his head, as beaver,
Topped the neck of Nick the Weaver.
Omar saw him (minus tether--
Free and wanton as the weather:
Knowing naught of bit or spur)
Stamping over Bahram-Gur.
Now, as Altgeld, see him joy
As Governor of Illinois!





THE SAINT AND THE MONK.

Saint Peter at the gate of Heaven displayed
The tools and terrors of his awful trade;
The key, the frown as pitiless as night,
That slays intending trespassers at sight,
And, at his side in easy reach, the curled
Interrogation points all ready to be hurled.

Straight up the shining cloudway (it so chanced
No others were about) a soul advanced--
A fat, orbicular and jolly soul
With laughter-lines upon each rosy jowl--
A monk so prepossessing that the saint
Admired him, breathless, until weak and faint,
Forgot his frown and all his questions too,
Forgoing even the customary "Who?"--
Threw wide the gate and, with a friendly grin,
Said, "'Tis a very humble home, but pray walk in."

The soul smiled pleasantly. "Excuse me, please--
Who's in there?" By insensible degrees
The impudence dispelled the saint's esteem,
As growing snores annihilate a dream.
The frown began to blacken on his brow,
His hand to reach for "Whence?" and "Why?" and "How?"
"O, no offense, I hope," the soul explained;
"I'm rather--well, particular. I've strained
A point in coming here at all; 'tis said
That Susan Anthony (I hear she's dead
At last) and all her followers are here.
As company, they'd be--confess it--rather queer."

The saint replied, his rising anger past:
"What can I do?--the law is hard-and-fast,
Albeit unwritten and on earth unknown--
An oral order issued from the Throne.
By but one sin has Woman e'er incurred
God's wrath. To accuse Them Loud of that would be absurd."

That friar sighed, but, calling up a smile,
Said, slowly turning on his heel the while:
"Farewell, my friend. Put up the chain and bar--
I'm going, so please you, where the pretty women are."

1895.





THE OPPOSING SEX.

The Widows of Ashur
Are loud in their wailing:
"No longer the 'masher'
Sees Widows of Ashur!"
So each is a lasher
Of Man's smallest failing.
The Widows of Ashur
Are loud in their wailing.

The Cave of Adullam,
That home of reviling--
No wooing can gull 'em
In Cave of Adullam.
No angel can lull 'em
To cease their defiling
The Cave of Adullam,