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

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.





MAD.

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!





HOSPITALITY.

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?





FOR A CERTAIN CRITIC.

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?





RELIGIOUS PROGRESS.

Every religion is important. When men rise above existing conditions a new religion comes in, and it is better than the old one.--_Professor owison_.


Professor dear, I think it queer
That all these good religions
('Twixt you and me, some two or three
Are schemes for plucking pigeons)--

I mean 'tis strange that every change
Our poor minds to unfetter
Entails a new religion--true
As t' other one, and better.

From each in turn the truth we learn,
That wood or flesh or spirit
May justly boast it rules the roast
Until we cease to fear it.

Nay, once upon a time long gone
Man worshipped Cat and Lizard:
His God he'd find in any kind
Of beast, from a to izzard.

When risen above his early love
Of dirt and blood and slumber,
He pulled down these vain deities,
And made one out of lumber.

"Far better that than even a cat,"
The Howisons all shouted;
"When God is wood religion's good!"
But one poor cynic doubted.

"A timber God--that's very odd!"
Said Progress, and invented
The simple plan to worship Man,
Who, kindly soul! consented.

But soon our eye we lift asky,
Our vows all unregarded,
And find (at least so says the priest)
The Truth--and Man's discarded.

Along our line of march recline
Dead gods devoid of feeling;
And thick about each sun-cracked lout
Dried Howisons are kneeling.





MAGNANIMITY.

"To the will of the people we loyally bow!"
That's the minority shibboleth now.
O noble antagonists, answer me flat--
What would you do if you didn't do that?





TO HER.

O, Sinner A, to me unknown
Be such a conscience as your own!
To ease it you to Sinner B
Confess the sins of Sinner C.





TO A SUMMER POET.

Yes, the Summer girl is flirting on the beach,
With a him.
And the damboy is a-climbing for the peach,
On the limb;
Yes, the bullfrog is a-croaking
And the dudelet is a-smoking
Cigarettes;
And the hackman is a-hacking
And the showman is a-cracking
Up his pets;
Yes, the Jersey 'skeeter flits along the shore
And the snapdog--we have heard it o'er and o'er;
Yes, my poet,
Well we know it--
Know the spooners how they spoon
In the bright
Dollar light
Of the country tavern moon;
Yes, the caterpillars fall
From the trees (we know it all),
And with beetles all the shelves
Are alive.

Please unbuttonhole us--O,
Have the grace to let us go,
For we know
How you Summer poets thrive,
By the recapitulation
And insistent iteration
Of the wondrous doings incident to Life Among
Ourselves!
So, I pray you stop the fervor and the fuss.
For you, poor human linnet,
There's a half a living in it,
But there's not a copper cent in it for us!





ARTHUR McEWEN.

Posterity with all its eyes
Will come and view him where he lies.
Then, turning from the scene away
With a concerted shrug, will say:
"H'm, Scarabaeus Sisyphus--
What interest has that to us?
We can't admire at all, at all,
A tumble-bug without its ball."
And then a sage will rise and say:
"Good friends, you err--turn back, I pray:
This freak that you unwisely shun
Is bug and ball rolled into one."





CHARLES AND PETER.

Ere Gabriel's note to silence died
All graves of men were gaping wide.

Then Charles A. Dana, of "The Sun,"
Rose slowly from the deepest one.

"The dead in Christ rise first, 't is writ,"
Quoth he--"ick, bick, ban, doe,--I'm It!"

(His headstone, footstone, counted slow,
Were "ick" and "bick," he "ban" and "doe":

Of beating Nick the subtle art
Was part of his immortal part.)

Then straight to Heaven he took his flight,
Arriving at the Gates of Light.

There Warden Peter, in the throes
Of sleep, lay roaring in the nose.

"Get up, you sluggard!" Dana cried--
"I've an engagement there inside."

The Saint arose and scratched his head.
"I recollect your face," he said.

"(And, pardon me, 't is rather hard),
But----" Dana handed him a card.

"Ah, yes, I now remember--bless
My