Ambrose Bierce

“ If 'twere artistic I would lie till death, And shape a falsehood with my latest breath. Parrhasius never more did pity lack, The while his model writhed upon the rack, Than I for my collaborator's pain, Who, stabbed with fibs again and yet again, Would vainly seek to move my stubborn heart If slander were, and wit were not, an art. The ill-bred and illiterate can lie As fast as you, and faster far than I. Shall I compete, then, in a strife accurst Where Allen Forman is an easy first, And where the second prize is rightly flung To Charley Shortridge or to Mike de Young? ”

“ Nay, I'll help you, sir, at that. This only passion does your soul inspire: You wish to scorn me. Well, you shall admire. 'Tis not enough my neighbors that you school In the belief that I'm a rogue or fool; That small advantage you would gladly trade For what one moment would yourself persuade. Write, then, your largest and your longest lie: You sha'n't believe it, howsoe'er you try. No falsehood you can tell, no evil do, Shall turn me from the truth to injure you. So all your war is barren of effect; I find my victory in your respect. What profit have you if the world you set Against me? ”

“ What matter when the Avenger choose to slay Or soon or late the Devil gets his own. Thenceforth through all eternity you'll hold No one advantage of the later death. Though you had granted Ralph another breath Would he to-day less silent lie and cold? Earth cares not, curst assassin, when you die; You never will be readier than now. Wear, in God's name, that mark upon your brow, And keep the life you purchased with a lie!
AN OBITUARIAN Death-poet Pickering sat at his desk, Wrapped in appropriate gloom; His posture was pensive and picturesque, Like a raven charming a tomb. ”

“ That from you, neighbor! to whose vacant lot Each rhyming literary knacker scourges His cart-compelling Pegasus to trot, As folly, fame or famine smartly urges? Admonished by the stimulating goad, How gaily, lo! the spavined crow-bait prances— Its cart before it—eager to unload The dead-dog sentiments and swill-tub fancies. Gravely the sweating scavenger pulls out The tail-board of his curst imagination, Shoots all his rascal rubbish, and, no doubt, Thanks Fortune for so good a dumping-station. To improve your property, the vile cascade Your thrift invites—to make a higher level. ”

“ I find in Folly and in Vice a lack Of head to hit, and for the lash no back; Whilst Pixley has a pow that's easy struck, And though good Deacon Fitch (a Fitch for luck!) Has none, yet, lest he go entirely free, God gave to him a corn, a heel to me. He, also, sets his face (so like a flint The wonder grows that Pickering doesn't skin't) With cold austerity, against these wars On scamps—'tis Scampery that he abhors! Behold advance in dignity and state— Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great— Stanford, philanthropist! One hand bestows In alms what t'other one as justice owes. ”

“ LLEWELLEN POWELL Villain, when the word is spoken, And your chains at last are broken When the gibbet's chilling shade Ceases darkly to enfold you, And the angel who enrolled you As a master of the trade Of assassination sadly Blots the record he has made, And your name and title paints In the calendar of saints; When the devils, dancing madly In the midmost Hell, are very Multitudinously merry— Then beware, beware, beware!—- Nemesis is everywhere! You shall hear her at your back, And, your hunted visage turning, Fancy that her eyes are burning Like a tiger's on your track! ”

“ Let soulless blades take human life, My softer metal shuns the strife. The annual review is mine, When gorgeous shopmen sweat and shine, And Biddy, tip-toe on the pave, Adores the cobble-trotting brave. I am for Cutting. 'Tis not mine To hew amain the hostile line; Not mine all pitiless to spread The plain with tumuli of dead. My grander duty lies afar From haunts of the insane hussar, Where charging horse and struggling foot Are grimed alike with cannon-soot. When Loveliness and Valor meet Beneath the trees to dance, and eat, And sing, and much beside, behold My golden glories all unfold! ”

“ Practice makes perfect: when for fame you thirst, Then whip a rascal. Whip a cripple first. Or, if for action you're less free than bold— Your palms both brimming with dishonest gold— Entrust the castigation that you've planned, As once before, to woman's idle hand. So in your spirit shall two pleasures join To slake the sacred thirst for blood and coin. Blood? Souls have blood, even as the body hath, And, spilled, 'twill fertilize the field of wrath. ”

“ The years go on, the old comes back To mock the new—beneath the sun. Is nothing new; ideas run Recurrent in an endless track. What most we censure, men as wise Have reverently practiced; nor Will future wisdom fail to war On principles we dearly prize. We do not know—we can but deem, And he is loyalest and best Who takes the light full on his breast And follows it throughout the dream. The broken light, the shadows wide— Behold the battle-field displayed! God save the vanquished from the blade, The victor from the victor's pride! ”

“ Religion, learning, birth and manners, too, All that distinguishes a man from you, Pray damn at will: all shining virtues gain An added luster from a rogue's disdain. But spare the young that proselyting sin, A toper's apotheosis of gin. If not our young, at least our pigs may claim Exemption from the spectacle of shame! Are you not he who lately out of shape Blew a brass trumpet to denounce the grape?— Who led the brave teetotalers afield And slew your leader underneath your shield?— Swore that no man should drink unless he flung Himself across your body at the bung? ”

“ Sharon, some years, perchance, remain of life— Of vice and greed, vulgarity and strife; And then—God speed the day if such His will— You'll lie among the dead you helped to kill, And be in good society at last, Your purse unsilvered and your face unbrassed.
A MAN Pennoyer, Governor of Oregon, Casting to South his eye across the bourne Of his dominion (where the Palmiped, With leathers 'twixt his toes, paddles his marsh, Amphibious) saw a rising cloud of hats, And heard a faint, far sound of distant cheers Below the swell of the horizon. "Lo," Cried one, "the President! the President!" ”

“ Weary of scribbling for daily bread, Weary of writing what nobody read, Slept one day at his desk and dreamed That an angel before him stood and beamed With compassionate eyes upon him there. Editor Owen is not so fair In feature, expression, form or limb But glances like that are familiar to him; And so, to arrive by the shortest route At his visitor's will he said, simply: "Toot." "Editor Owen," the angel said, "Scribble no more for your daily bread. Your intellect staggers and falls and bleeds, Weary of writing what nobody reads. ”

“ THE LEGATEE In fair San Francisco a good man did dwell, And he wrote out a will, for he didn't feel well, Said he: "It is proper, when making a gift, To stimulate virtue by comforting thrift." So he left all his property, legal and straight, To "the cursedest rascal in all of the State." But the name he refused to insert, for, said he; "Let each man consider himself legatee." In due course of time that philanthropist died, And all San Francisco, and Oakland beside— Save only the lawyers—came each with his claim The lawyers preferring to manage the same. ”

“ Death only from the bench could ever start The sluggish load of his immortal part. John Irish went, one luckless day, To loaf and fish at San Jose. He got no loaf, he got no fish: They brained him with an empty dish! They laid him in this place asleep— O come, ye crocodiles, and weep. In Sacramento City here This wooden monument we rear In memory of Dr. May, Whose smile even Death could not allay. He's buried, Heaven alone knows where, And only the hyenas care; This May-pole merely marks the spot Where, ere the wretch began to rot, Fame's trumpet, with its brazen bray, Bawled ”

“ Where I had worshiped at my father's tomb, Within a massive temple's awful gloom, A jackal slunk along the naked rock, Affrighted by some prescience of doom. Man's vestiges were nowhere to be found, Save one brass mausoleum on a mound (I knew it well) spared by the artist Time To emphasize the desolation round. Into the stagnant sea the sullen sun Sank behind bars of crimson, one by one. "Eternity's at hand!" I cried aloud. "Eternity," the angel said, "is done. For man is ages dead in every zone; The angels all are dead but I alone ”

“ In life they loved and (God knows why A lover so should sue) He slew her, on the gallows high Died pious—and they flew. Her pinions were bedraggled, soiled And torn as by a gale, While his were bright—all freshly oiled The feathers of his tail. Her visage, too, was stained and worn And menacing and grim; His sweet and mild—you would have sworn That she had murdered him. When they'd arrived before the gate He said to her: "My dear, 'Tis hard once more to separate, But you can't enter here. ”

“ From sinful creditors' unholy greed The church called Calvary at last is freed— So called for there the Savior's crucified, Roberts and Carmany on either side. The circling contribution-box no more Provokes the nod and simulated snore; No more the Lottery, no more the Fair, Lure the reluctant dollar from its lair, Nor Ladies' Lunches at a bit a bite Destroy the health yet spare the appetite, While thrifty sisters o'er the cauldron stoop To serve their God with zeal, their friends with soup, And all the brethren mendicate the earth With viewless placards: "We've been so from birth!" ”

“ CAIN Lord, shed thy light upon his desert path, And gild his branded brow, that no man spill His forfeit life to balk thy holy will That spares him for the ripening of wrath. Already, lo! the red sign is descried, To trembling jurors visibly revealed: The prison doors obediently yield, The baffled hangman flings the cord aside. Powell, the brother's blood that marks your trail— Hark, how it cries against you from the ground, Like the far baying of the tireless hound. Faith! to your ear it is no nightingale. What signifies the date upon a stone? To-morrow you shall die if not to-day. ”

“ Precursor of our woes, historic spade, What dismal records burn upon thy blade! On thee I see the maculating stains Of passengers' commingled blood and brains. In this red rust a widow's curse appears, And here an orphan tarnished thee with tears. Upon thy handle sanguinary bands Reveal the clutching of thine owner's hands When first he wielded thee with vigor brave To cut a sod and dig a people's grave— (For they who are debauched are dead and ought, In God's name, to be hid from sight and thought.) ”

“ You've money; learning is beyond your scope, Deaf to your envy, stubborn to your hope. But if upon your undeserving head Science and letters had their glory shed; If in the cavern of your skull the light Of knowledge shone where now eternal night Breeds the blind, poddy, vapor-fatted naughts Of cerebration that you think are thoughts— Black bats in cold and dismal corners hung That squeak and gibber when you move your tongue— You would not write, in Avarice's defense, A senseless eulogy on lack of sense, Nor show your eagerness to sacrifice All noble virtues to one loathsome vice. ”

“ Convenient to this sacred spot Lies Sammy, who applied it, hot. 'Tis hard—so much alike they smell— One's grave from t'other's grave to tell, But when his tomb the Deacon's burst (Of two he'll always be the first) He'll see by studying the stones That he's obtained his proper bones, Then, seeking Sammy's vault, unlock it, And put that person in his pocket. Beneath this stone O'Donnell's tongue's at rest— Our noses by his spirit still addressed. Living or dead, he's equally Satanic— His noise a terror and his smell a panic. ”

“ Wilson's keen concern To get the creature in his churn Unhorsed his caution—made him blind To the fell vigor of bullkind, Till, filled with valor to the teeth, He drew his dasher from its sheath And bravely brandished it; the while He smiled a dark, portentous smile; A deep, sepulchral smile; a wide And open smile, which, at his side, The churn to copy vainly tried; A smile so like the dawn of doom That all the field was palled in gloom, And all the trees within a mile, As tribute to that awful smile, Made haste, with loyalty discreet, To fling their shadows at his feet. ”

“ A COWARD When Pickering, distressed by an "attack," Has the strange insolence to answer back He hides behind a name that is a lie, And out of shadow falters his reply. God knows him, though—identified alike By hardihood to rise and fear to strike, And fitly to rebuke his sins decrees, That, hide from others with what care he please, Night sha'n't be black enough nor earth so wide That from himself himself can ever hide! ”

“ Who sings for nobles, he should noble be. There's no non sequitur, I think, in that, And this is logic plain as a, b, c. Now, Hector Stuart, you're a Scottish prince, If right you fathom your descent—that fall From grace; and since you have no peers, and since You have no kind of nobleness at all, 'Twere better to sing little, lest you wince When made by heartless critics to sing small. And yet, my liege, I bid you not despair— Ambition conquers but a realm at once: For European bays arrange your hair— Two continents, in time, shall crown you Dunce! ”

“ Because that you have greatly lied, because You libel nations, and because no hand Of officer is raised to bid you stand, And falsehood is unpunished of the laws, I stand here in a public place to mark With level finger where you part the crowd— I stand to name you and to cry aloud: "Behold mendacity's great hierarch!"
A SOCIETY LEADER "The Social World"! O what a world it is— Where full-grown men cut capers in the German, Cotillion, waltz, or what you will, and whizz And spin and hop and sprawl about like mermen! ”

“ If, Salomon, the blessed dew That falls upon the Blue and Gray Is powerless to wash away The sin of differing from you. Remember how the flood of years Has rolled across the erring slain; Remember, too, the cleansing rain Of widows' and of orphans' tears. The dead are dead—let that atone: And though with equal hand we strew The blooms on saint and sinner too, Yet God will know to choose his own. The wretch, whate'er his life and lot, Who does not love the harmless dead With all his heart and all his head— May God forgive him—I shall not. ”

“ A CALLER "Why, Goldenson, you're looking very well." Said Death as, strolling through the County Jail, He entered that serene assassin's cell And hung his hat and coat upon a nail. "I think that life in this secluded spot Agrees with men of your trade, does it not?" "Well, yes," said Goldenson, "I can't complain: Life anywhere—provided it is mine— Agrees with me; but I observe with pain That still the people murmur and repine. It hurts their sense of harmony, no doubt, To see a persecuted man grow stout." ”

“ If one short year's immunity has made You blink again the perils of your trade— The ghastly sequence of the maddened "knave," The hot encounter and the colder grave; If the grim, dismal lesson you ignore While yet the stains are fresh upon your floor, And calmly march upon the fatal brink With eyes averted to your trail of ink, Counting unkind the services of those Who pull, to hold you back, your stupid nose, The day for you to die is not so far, Or, at the least, to live the thing you are! ”