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

as now the promise is,
Next summer sees the edifice complete
Which some do name a crematorium,
Within the vantage of whose greater maw's
Quicker digestion we shall cheat the worm
And circumvent the handed mole who loves,
With tunnel, adit, drift and roomy stope,
To mine our mortal parts in all their dips
And spurs and angles. Let the fool stand forth
To link his name with this fair enterprise,
As first decarcassed by the flame. And if
With rival greedings for the fiery fame
They push in clamoring multitudes, or if
With unaccustomed modesty they all
Hold off, being something loth to qualify,
Let me select the fittest for the rite.
By heaven! I'll make so warrantable, wise
And excellent censure of their true deserts,
And such a searching canvass of their claims,
That none shall bait the ballot. I'll spread my choice
Upon the main and general of those
Who, moved of holy impulse, pulpit-born,
Protested 'twere a sacrilege to burn
God's gracious images, designed to rot,
And bellowed for the right of way for each
Distempered carrion through the water pipes.
With such a sturdy, boisterous exclaim
They did discharge themselves from their own throats
Against the splintered gates of audience
'Twere wholesomer to take them in at mouth
Than ear. These shall burn first: their ignible
And seasoned substances--trunks, legs and arms,
Blent indistinguishable in a mass,
Like winter-woven serpents in a pit--
None vantaged of his fellow-fools in point
Of precedence, and all alive--shall serve
As fueling to fervor the retort
For after cineration of true men.





A DEMAND.

You promised to paint me a picture,
Dear Mat,
And I was to pay you in rhyme.
Although I am loth to inflict your
Most easy of consciences, I'm
Of opinion that fibbing is awful,
And breaking a contract unlawful,
Indictable, too, as a crime,
A slight and all that.

If, Lady Unbountiful, any
Of that
By mortals called pity has part
In your obdurate soul--if a penny
You care for the health of my heart,
By performing your undertaking
You'll succor that organ from breaking--
And spare it for some new smart,
As puss does a rat.

Do you think it is very becoming,
Dear Mat,
To deny me my rights evermore
And--bless you! if I begin summing
Your sins they will make a long score!
You never were generous, madam,
If you had been Eve and I Adam
You'd have given me naught but the core,
And little of that.

Had I been content with a Titian,
A cat
By Landseer, a meadow by Claude,
No doubt I'd have had your permission
To take it--by purchase abroad.
But why should I sail o'er the ocean
For Landseers and Claudes? I've a notion
All's bad that the critics belaud.
I wanted a Mat.

Presumption's a sin, and I suffer
For that:
But still you _did_ say that sometime,
If I'd pay you enough (here's enougher--
That's more than enough) of rhyme
You'd paint me a picture. I pay you
Hereby in advance; and I pray you
Condone, while you can, your crime,
And send me a Mat.

But if you don't do it I warn you,
Dear Mat,
I'll raise such a clamor and cry
On Parnassus the Muses will scorn you
As mocker of poets and fly
With bitter complaints to Apollo:
"Her spirit is proud, her heart hollow,
Her beauty"--they'll hardly deny,
On second thought, _that_!





THE WEATHER WIGHT.

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.





T.A.H.

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.





MY MONUMENT.