Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
Rebuke
When Admonition's hand essaysOur greed to curse,Its lifted finger oft displaysOur missing purse.
© Ambrose Bierce
Psychographs
Says Gerald Massey: 'When I write, a bandOf souls of the departed guides my hand.'How strange that poems cumbering our shelves,Penned by immortal..
© Ambrose Bierce
Presentiment
WITH saintly grace and reverent tread She walked among the graves with me; Her every footfall seemed to beA benediction on the dead.The..
© Ambrose Bierce
Prayer [fear Not In Any Tongue To Call]
Fear not in any tongue to callUpon the Lord-He's skilled in all.But if He answereth my pleaHe speaketh one unknown to me.
© Ambrose Bierce
Posterity's Award
I'd long been dead, but I returned to earth.Some small affairs posterity was makingA mess of, and I came to see that worthReceived its dues. I'd..
© Ambrose Bierce
Polyphemus
Twas a sick young man with a face ungayAnd an eye that was all alone;And he shook his head in a hopeless wayAs he sat on a roadside stone.'O, ailing..
© Ambrose Bierce
Politics
That land full surely hastens to its endWhere public sycophants in homage bendThe populace to flatter, and repeatThe doubled echoes of its loud..
© Ambrose Bierce
Political Economy
'I beg you to note,' said a Man to a Goose,As he plucked from her bosom the plumage all loose,'That pillows and cushions of feathers and bedsAs warm..
© Ambrose Bierce
Poesy
Successive bards pursue Ambition's fireThat shines, Oblivion, above thy mire.The latest mounts his predecessor's trunk,And sinks his brother ere..
© Ambrose Bierce
Piety
The pig is taught by sermons and epistlesTo think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.Judibras.
© Ambrose Bierce
Philosopher Bimm
Republicans think Jonas BimmA Democrat gone mad,And Democrats consider himRepublican and bad.The Tough reviles him as a DudeAnd gives it him right..
© Ambrose Bierce
'Phil' Crimmins
Still as he climbed into the public viewHis charms of person more apparent grew,Till the pleased world that watched his airy graceSaw nothing of him..
© Ambrose Bierce
'Peaceable Expulsion'
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.MOUNTWAVE _a Politician_HARDHAND _a Workingman_TOK BAK _a Chinaman_SATAN _a Friend to Mountwave_CHORUS OF FOREIGN..
© Ambrose Bierce
Peace
When lion and lamb have together lain downSpectators cry out, all in chorus;'The lamb doesn't shrink nor the lion frownA miracle's working before..
© Ambrose Bierce
Over The Border
O, justice, you have fled, to dwellIn Mexico, unstrangled,Lest you should hang as high as-well,As Haman dangled.(I know not if his cord he twanged,Or..
© Ambrose Bierce
Ornithanthropos
'Let John P. Irish rise!' the edict rangAs when Creation into being sprang!Nature, not clearly understanding, triedTo make a bird that on the air..
© Ambrose Bierce
Oneiromancy
I fell asleep and dreamed that IWas flung, like Vulcan, from the sky;Like him was lamed-another part:His leg was crippled and my heart.I woke in time..
© Ambrose Bierce
One President
'What are those, father?' 'Statesmen, my childLacrymose, unparliamentary, wild.''What are they that way for, father?' 'Last fall,'Our candidate's..
© Ambrose Bierce
One Of The Unfair Sex
She stood at the ticket-seller'sSerenely removing her glove,While hundreds of strugglers and yellers,And some that were good at a shove,Were..
© Ambrose Bierce
One Of The Saints
Big Smith is an Oakland School Board man,And he looks as good as ever he can;And he's such a cold and a chaste Big SmithThat snowflakes all are his..
© Ambrose Bierce
One Of The Redeemed
Saint Peter, standing at the Gate, beheldA soul whose body Death had lately felled.A pleasant soul as ever was, he seemed:His step was joyous and his..
© Ambrose Bierce
One Morning
Because that I am weak, my love, and ill,I cannot follow the impatient feetOf my desire, but sit and watch the beatOf the unpitying pendulum..
© Ambrose Bierce
One Mood's Expression
See, Lord, fanatics all arrayedFor revolution!To foil their villainous crusadeUnsheathe again the sacred bladeOf persecution. What though through..
© Ambrose Bierce
One Judge
Wallace, created on a noble planTo show us that a Judge can be a Man;Through moral mire exhaling mortal stenchGod-guided sweet and foot-clean to the..
© Ambrose Bierce
One And One Are Two
The trumpet sounded and the deadCame forth from earth and ocean,And Pickering arose and spedAloft with wobbling motion.'What makes him fly..
© Ambrose Bierce