Black Beetles in Amber by Ambrose Bierce (the red fox clan TXT) 📕

same
With men as other monkeys: all their souls
Crave eminence on any kind of poles.
But cynics (barking tribe!) are all agreed
That monkeys upon poles performing capers
Are not exalted, they are only "treed."
A glory that is kindled by the papers
Is transient as the phosphorescent vapors
That shine in graveyards and are seen, indeed,
But while the bodies that supply the gas
Are turning into weeds to feed an ass.

One can but wonder sometimes how it feels
To _be_ an ass--a beast we beat condignly
Because, like yours, his life is in his heels
And he is prone to use them unbenignly.
The ladies (bless them!) say you dance divinely.
I like St. Vitus better, though, who deals
His feet about him with a grace more just,
And hops, not for he will, but for he must.

Doubtless it gratifies you to observe
Elbowy girls and adipose mamas
All looking adoration as you swerve
This way and that; but prosperous papas
Laugh in their sleeves at you, and their ha-has,
If heard, would somewhat agitate your nerve.
And dames and maids who keep you on their
shelves
Don't seem to want a closer tie themselves.

Gods! what a life you live!--by day a slave
To your exacting back and urgent belly;
Intent to earn and vigilant to save--
By night, attired so sightly and so smelly,
With countenance as luminous as jelly,
Bobbing and bowing! King of hearts and knave
Of diamonds, I'd bet a silver brick
If brains were trumps you'd never take a trick.



EXPOSITOR VERITATIS

I Slept, and, waking in the years to be,
Heard voices, and approaching whence they came,
Listened indifferently where a key
Had lately been removed. An ancient dame
Said to her daughter: "Go to yonder caddy
And get some emery to scour your daddy."

And then I knew--some intuition said--
That tombs were not and men had cleared their shelves
Of urns; and the electro-plated dead
Stood pedestaled as statues of themselves.
With famous dead men all the public places
Were thronged, and some in piles awaited bases.

One mighty structure's high facade alone
Contained a single monumental niche,
Where, central in that steep expanse of stone,
Gleamed the familiar form of Thomas Fitch.
A man cried: "Lo! Truth's temple and its founder!"
Then gravely added: "I'm her chief expounder."



TO "COLONEL" DAN. BURNS

They say, my lord, that you're a Warwick. Well,
The title's an absurd one, I believe:
You make no kings, you have no kings to sell,
Though really 'twere easy to conceive
You stuffing half-a-dozen up your sleeve.
No, you're no Warwick, skillful from the shell
To hatch out sovereigns. On a mare's nest, maybe,
You'd incubate a little jackass baby.

I fancy, too, that it is naught but stuff,
This "power" that you're said to be "behind
The throne." I'm sure 'twere accurate enough
To represent you simply as inclined
To push poor Markham (ailing in his mind
And body, which were never very tough)
Round in an invalid's wheeled chair. Such menial
Employment to low natures is congenial.

No, Dan, you're an impostor every way:
A human bubble, for "the earth," you know,
"Hath bubbles, as the water hath." Some day
Some careless hand will prick your film, and O,
How utterly you'll vanish! Daniel, throw
(As fallen Woolsey might to Cromwell say)
Your curst ambition to the pigs--though truly
'Twould make them greater pigs, and more unruly.



GEORGE A. KNIGHT

Attorney Knight, it happens so sometimes
That lawyers, justifying cut-throats' crimes
For hire--calumniating, too, for gold,
The dead, dumb victims cruelly unsouled--
Speak, through the press, to a tribunal far
More honorable than their Honors are,--
A court that sits not with assenting smile
While living rogues dead gentleman revile,--
A court where scoundrel ethics of your trade
Confuse no judgment and no cheating aid,--
The Court of Honest Souls, where you in vain
May plead your right to falsify for gain,
Sternly reminded if a man engage
To serve assassins for the liar's wage,
His mouth with vilifying falsehoods crammed,
He's twice detestable and doubly damned!

Attorney Knight, defending Powell, you,
To earn your fee, so energetic grew
(So like a hound, the pride of all the pack,
Clapping your nose upon the dead man's track
To run his faults to earth--at least proclaim
At vacant holes the overtaken game)
That men who marked you nourishing the tongue,
And saw your arms so vigorously swung,
All marveled how so light a breeze could stir
So great a windmill to so great a whirr!
Little they knew, or surely they had grinned,
The mill was laboring to raise the wind.

Ralph Smith a "shoulder-striker"! God, O hear
This hardy man's description of thy dear
Dead child, the gentlest soul, save only One,
E'er born in any land beneath the sun.
All silent benefactions still he wrought:
High deed and gracious speech and noble thought,
Kept all thy law, and, seeking still the right,
Upon his blameless breast received the light.

"Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints," he cried
Whose wrath was deep as his comparison wide--
Milton, thy servant. Nay, thy will be done:
To smite or spare--to me it all is one.
Can vengeance bring my sorrow to an end,
Or justice give me back my buried friend?
But if some Milton vainly now implore,
And Powell prosper as he did before,
Yet 'twere too much that, making no ado,
Thy saints be slaughtered and be slandered too.
So, Lord, make Knight his weapon keep in sheath,
Or do Thou wrest it from between his teeth!



UNARMED

Saint Peter sat at the jasper gate,
When Stephen M. White arrived in state.

"Admit me." "With pleasure," Peter said,
Pleased to observe that the man was dead;

"That's what I'm here for. Kindly show
Your ticket, my lord, and in you go."

White stared in blank surprise. Said he
"I _run_ this place--just turn that key."

"Yes?" said the Saint; and Stephen heard
With pain the inflection of that word.

But, mastering his emotion, he
Remarked: "My friend, you're too d---- free;

"I'm Stephen M., by thunder, White!"
And, "Yes?" the guardian said, with quite

The self-same irritating stress
Distinguishing his former yes.

And still demurely as a mouse
He twirled the key to that Upper House.

Then Stephen, seeing his bluster vain
Admittance to those halls to gain,

Said, neighborly: "Pray tell me. Pete,
Does any one contest my seat?"

The Saint replied: "Nay, nay, not so;
But you voted always wrong below:

"Whate'er the question, clear and high
You're voice rang: '_I_,' '_I_,' ever '_I_.'"

Now indignation fired the heart
Of that insulted immortal part.

"Die, wretch!" he cried, with blanching lip,
And made a motion to his hip,

With purpose murderous and hearty,
To draw the Democratic party!

He felt his fingers vainly slide
Upon his unappareled hide

(The dead arise from their "silent tents"
But not their late habiliments)

Then wailed--the briefest of his speeches:
"I've left it in my other breeches!"



A POLITICAL VIOLET

Come, Stanford, let us sit at ease
And talk as old friends do.
You talk of anything you please,
And I will talk of you.

You recently have said, I hear,
That you would like to go
To serve as Senator. That's queer!
Have you told William Stow?

Once when the Legislature said:
"Go, Stanford, and be great!"
You lifted up your Jovian head
And everlooked the State.

As one made leisurely awake,
You lightly rubbed your eyes
And answered: "Thank you--please to make
A note of my surprise.

"But who are they who skulk aside,
As to get out of reach,
And in their clothing strive to hide
Three thousand dollars each?

"Not members of your body, sure?
No, that can hardly be:
All statesmen, I suppose, are pure.
What! there are rogues? Dear me!"

You added, you'll recall, that though
You were surprised and pained,
You thought, upon the whole, you'd go,
And in that mind remained.

Now, what so great a change has wrought
That you so frankly speak
Of "seeking" honors once unsought
Because you "scorned to seek"?

Do you not fear the grave reproof
In good Creed Haymond's eye?
Will Stephen Gage not stand aloof
And pass you coldly by?

O, fear you not that Vrooman's lich
Will rise from earth and point
At you a scornful finger which
May lack, perchance, a joint?

Go, Stanford, where the violets grow,
And join their modest train.
Await the work of William Stow
And be surprised again.



THE SUBDUED EDITOR

Pope-choker Pixley sat in his den
A-chewin' upon his quid.
He thought it was Leo Thirteen, and then
He bit it intenser, he did.

The amber which overflew from the cud
Like rivers which burst out of bounds--
'Twas peculiar grateful to think it blood
A-gushin' from Papal wounds.

A knockin' was heard uponto the door
Where some one a-waitin' was.
"Come in," said the shedder of priestly gore,
Arrestin' to once his jaws.

The person which entered was curly of hair
And smilin' as ever you see;
His eyes was blue, and uncommon fair
Was his physiognomee.

And yet there was some'at remarkable grand--
And the editor says as he looks:
"Your Height" (it was Highness, you understand,
That he meant, but he spoke like books)--

"Your Height, I am in. I'm the editor man
Of this paper--which is to say,
I'm the owner, too, and it's alway ran
In the independentest way!

"Not a damgaloot can interfere,
A-shapin' my course for me:
This paper's (and nothing can make it veer)
Pixleian in policee!"

"It's little to me," said the sunny youth,
"If journals is better or worse
Where I am to home they won't keep, in truth,
The climate is that perverse.

"I've come, howsomever, your mind to light
With a more superior fire:
You'll have naught hencefor'ard to do but write,
While I sets by and inspire.

"We'll make it hot all round, bedad!"
And his laughture was loud and free.
"The devil!" cried Pixley, surpassin' mad.
"Exactly, my friend--that's me."

So he took a chair and a feather fan,
And he sets and sets and sets,
Inspirin' that humbled editor man,
Which sweats and sweats and sweats!

All unavailin' his struggles be,