Book: Shapes of Clay

A >> Ambrose Bierce >> Shapes of Clay







A BUILDER.


I saw the devil--he was working free:
A customs-house he builded by the sea.
"Why do you this?" The devil raised his head;
"Churches and courts I've built enough," he said.




AN AUGURY.


Upon my desk a single spray,
With starry blossoms fraught.
I write in many an idle way,
Thinking one serious thought.

"O flowers, a fine Greek name ye bear,
And with a fine Greek grace."
Be still, O heart, that turns to share
The sunshine of a face.

"Have ye no messages--no brief,
Still sign: 'Despair', or 'Hope'?"
A sudden stir of stem and leaf--
A breath of heliotrope!




LUSUS POLITICUS.


Come in, old gentleman. How do you do?
Delighted, I'm sure, that you've called.
I'm a sociable sort of a chap and you
Are a pleasant-appearing person, too,
With a head agreeably bald.
That's right--sit down in the scuttle of coal
And put up your feet in a chair.
It is better to have them there:
And I've always said that a hat of lead,
Such as I see you wear,
Was a better hat than a hat of glass.
And your boots of brass
Are a natural kind of boots, I swear.
"May you blow your nose on a paper of pins?"
Why, certainly, man, why not?
I rather expected you'd do it before,
When I saw you poking it in at the door.
It's dev'lish hot--
The weather, I mean. "You are twins"?
Why, that was evident at the start,
From the way that you paint your head
In stripes of purple and red,
With dots of yellow.
That proves you a fellow
With a love of legitimate art.
"You've bitten a snake and are feeling bad"?
That's very sad,
But Longfellow's words I beg to recall:
Your lot is the common lot of all.
"Horses are trees and the moon is a sneeze"?
That, I fancy, is just as you please.
Some think that way and others hold
The opposite view;
I never quite knew,
For the matter o' that,
When everything's been said--
May I offer this mat
If you _will_ stand on your head?
I suppose I look to be upside down
From your present point of view.
It's a giddy old world, from king to clown,
And a topsy-turvy, too.
But, worthy and now uninverted old man,
_You're_ built, at least, on a normal plan
If ever a truth I spoke.
Smoke?
Your air and conversation
Are a liberal education,
And your clothes, including the metal hat
And the brazen boots--what's that?

"You never could stomach a Democrat
Since General Jackson ran?
You're another sort, but you predict
That your party'll get consummately licked?"
Good God! what a queer old man!




BEREAVEMENT.


A Countess (so they tell the tale)
Who dwelt of old in Arno's vale,
Where ladies, even of high degree,
Know more of love than of A.B.C,
Came once with a prodigious bribe
Unto the learned village scribe,
That most discreet and honest man
Who wrote for all the lover clan,
Nor e'er a secret had betrayed--
Save when inadequately paid.
"Write me," she sobbed--"I pray thee do--
A book about the Prince di Giu--
A book of poetry in praise
Of all his works and all his ways;
The godlike grace of his address,
His more than woman's tenderness,
His courage stern and lack of guile,
The loves that wantoned in his smile.
So great he was, so rich and kind,
I'll not within a fortnight find
His equal as a lover. O,
My God! I shall be drowned in woe!"

"What! Prince di Giu has died!" exclaimed
The honest man for letters famed,
The while he pocketed her gold;
"Of what'?--if I may be so bold."
Fresh storms of tears the lady shed:
"I stabbed him fifty times," she said.




AN INSCRIPTION

FOR A STATUE OF NAPOLEON, AT WEST POINT.


A famous conqueror, in battle brave,
Who robbed the cradle to supply the grave.
His reign laid quantities of human dust:
He fell upon the just and the unjust.




A PICKBRAIN.


What! imitate me, friend? Suppose that you
With agony and difficulty do
What I do easily--what then? You've got
A style I heartily wish _I_ had not.
If I from lack of sense and you from choice
Grieve the judicious and the unwise rejoice,
No equal censure our deserts will suit--
We both are fools, but you're an ape to boot!




CONVALESCENT.


"By good men's prayers see Grant restored!"
Shouts Talmage, pious creature!
Yes, God, by supplication bored
From every droning preacher,
Exclaimed: "So be it, tiresome crew--
But I've a crow to pick with _you_."




THE NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR.


He looked upon the ships as they
All idly lay at anchor,
Their sides with gorgeous workmen gay--
The riveter and planker--

Republicans and Democrats,
Statesmen and politicians.
He saw the swarm of prudent rats
Swimming for land positions.

He marked each "belted cruiser" fine,
Her poddy life-belts floating
In tether where the hungry brine
Impinged upon her coating.

He noted with a proud regard,
As any of his class would,
The poplar mast and poplar yard
Above the hull of bass-wood.

He saw the Eastlake frigate tall,
With quaintly carven gable,
Hip-roof and dormer-window--all
With ivy formidable.

In short, he saw our country's hope
In best of all conditions--
Equipped, to the last spar and rope,
By working politicians.

He boarded then the noblest ship
And from the harbor glided.
"Adieu, adieu!" fell from his lip.
Verdict: "He suicided."

1881.




DETECTED.


In Congress once great Mowther shone,
Debating weighty matters;
Now into an asylum thrown,
He vacuously chatters.

If in that legislative hall
His wisdom still he 'd vented,
It never had been known at all
That Mowther was demented.




BIMETALISM.


Ben Bulger was a silver man,
Though not a mine had he:
He thought it were a noble plan
To make the coinage free.

"There hain't for years been sech a time,"
Said Ben to his bull pup,
"For biz--the country's broke and I'm
The hardest kind of up.

"The paper says that that's because
The silver coins is sea'ce,
And that the chaps which makes the laws
Puts gold ones in their place.

"They says them nations always be
Most prosperatin' where
The wolume of the currency
Ain't so disgustin' rare."

His dog, which hadn't breakfasted,
Dissented from his view,
And wished that he could swell, instead,
The volume of cold stew.

"Nobody'd put me up," said Ben,
"With patriot galoots
Which benefits their feller men
By playin' warious roots;

"But havin' all the tools about,
I'm goin' to commence
A-turnin' silver dollars out
Wuth eighty-seven cents.

"The feller takin' 'em can't whine:
(No more, likewise, can I):
They're better than the genooine,
Which mostly satisfy.

"It's only makin' coinage free,
And mebby might augment
The wolume of the currency
A noomerous per cent."

I don't quite see his error nor
Malevolence prepense,
But fifteen years they gave him for
That technical offense.




THE RICH TESTATOR.


He lay on his bed and solemnly "signed,"
Gasping--perhaps 'twas a jest he meant:
"This of a sound and disposing mind
Is the last ill-will and contestament."




TWO METHODS.


To bucks and ewes by the Good Shepherd fed
The Priest delivers masses for the dead,
And even from estrays outside the fold
Death for the masses he would not withhold.
The Parson, loth alike to free or kill,
Forsakes the souls already on the grill,
And, God's prerogative of mercy shamming,
Spares living sinners for a harder damning.




FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE


Observe, dear Lord, what lively pranks
Are played by sentimental cranks!
First this one mounts his hinder hoofs
And brays the chimneys off the roofs;
Then that one, with exalted voice,
Expounds the thesis of his choice,
Our understandings to bombard,
Till all the window panes are starred!
A third augments the vocal shock
Till steeples to their bases rock,
Confessing, as they humbly nod,
They hear and mark the will of God.
A fourth in oral thunder vents
His awful penury of sense
Till dogs with sympathetic howls,
And lowing cows, and cackling fowls,
Hens, geese, and all domestic birds,
Attest the wisdom of his words.
Cranks thus their intellects deflate
Of theories about the State.
This one avers 'tis built on Truth,
And that on Temperance. This youth
Declares that Science bears the pile;
That graybeard, with a holy smile,
Says Faith is the supporting stone;
While women swear that Love alone
Could so unflinchingly endure
The heavy load. And some are sure
The solemn vow of Christian Wedlock
Is the indubitable bedrock.

Physicians once about the bed
Of one whose life was nearly sped
Blew up a disputatious breeze
About the cause of his disease:
This, that and t' other thing they blamed.
"Tut, tut!" the dying man exclaimed,
"What made me ill I do not care;
You've not an ounce of it, I'll swear.
And if you had the skill to make it
I'd see you hanged before I'd take it!"




AN IMPOSTER.


Must you, Carnegie, evermore explain
Your worth, and all the reasons give again
Why black and red are similarly white,
And you and God identically right?
Still must our ears without redress submit
To hear you play the solemn hypocrite
Walking in spirit some high moral level,
Raising at once his eye-balls and the devil?
Great King of Cant! if Nature had but made
Your mouth without a tongue I ne'er had prayed
To have an earless head. Since she did not,
Bear me, ye whirlwinds, to some favored spot--
Some mountain pinnacle that sleeps in air
So delicately, mercifully rare
That when the fellow climbs that giddy hill,
As, for my sins, I know at last he will,
To utter twaddle in that void inane
His soundless organ he will play in vain.




UNEXPOUNDED.


On Evidence, on Deeds, on Bills,
On Copyhold, on Loans, on Wills,
Lawyers great books indite;
The creaking of their busy quills
I've never heard on Right.




FRANCE.


Unhappy State! with horrors still to strive:
Thy Hugo dead, thy Boulanger alive;
A Prince who'd govern where he dares not dwell,
And who for power would his birthright sell--
Who, anxious o'er his enemies to reign,
Grabs at the scepter and conceals the chain;
While pugnant factions mutually strive
By cutting throats to keep the land alive.
Perverse in passion, as in pride perverse--
To all a mistress, to thyself a curse;
Sweetheart of Europe! every sun's embrace
Matures the charm and poison of thy grace.
Yet time to thee nor peace nor wisdom brings:
In blood of citizens and blood of kings
The stones of thy stability are set,
And the fair fabric trembles at a threat.




THE EASTERN QUESTION.


Looking across the line, the Grecian said:
"This border I will stain a Turkey red."
The Moslem smiled securely and replied:
"No Greek has ever for his country dyed."
While thus each patriot guarded his frontier,
The Powers stole all the country in his rear.




A GUEST.


Death, are you well? I trust you have no cough
That's painful or in any way annoying--
No kidney trouble that may carry you off,
Or heart disease to keep you from enjoying
Your meals--and ours. 'T were very sad indeed
To have to quit the busy life you lead.

You've been quite active lately for so old
A person, and not very strong-appearing.
I'm apprehensive, somehow, that my bold,
Bad brother gave you trouble in the spearing.
And my two friends--I fear, sir, that you ran
Quite hard for them, especially the man.

I crave your pardon: 'twas no fault of mine;
If you are overworked I'm sorry, very.
Come in, old man, and have a glass of wine.
What shall it be--Marsala, Port or Sherry?
What! just a mug of blood? That's funny grog
To ask a friend for, eh? Well, take it, hog!




A FALSE PROPHECY.


Dom Pedro, Emperor of far Brazil
(Whence coffee comes and the three-cornered nut),
They say that you're imperially ill,
And threatened with paralysis. Tut-tut!
Though Emperors are mortal, nothing but
A nimble thunderbolt could catch and kill
A man predestined to depart this life
By the assassin's bullet, bomb or knife.

Sir, once there was a President who freed
Ten million slaves; and once there was a Czar
Who freed five times as many serfs. Sins breed
The means of punishment, and tyrants are
Hurled headlong out of the triumphal car
If faster than the law allows they speed.
Lincoln and Alexander struck a rut;
_You_ freed slaves too. Paralysis--tut-tut!

1885.




TWO TYPES.


Courageous fool!--the peril's strength unknown.
Courageous man!--so conscious of your own.




SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS.


STEPHEN DORSEY.

Fly, heedless stranger, from this spot accurst,
Where rests in Satan an offender first
In point of greatness, as in point of time,
Of new-school rascals who proclaim their crime.
Skilled with a frank loquacity to blab
The dark arcana of each mighty grab,
And famed for lying from his early youth,
He sinned secure behind a veil of truth.
Some lock their lips upon their deeds; some write
A damning record and conceal from sight;
Some, with a lust of speaking, die to quell it.
His way to keep a secret was to tell it.


STEPHEN J. FIELD.

Here sleeps one of the greatest students
Of jurisprudence.
Nature endowed him with the gift
Of the juristhrift.
All points of law alike he threw
The dice to settle.
Those honest cubes were loaded true
With railway metal.


GENERAL B.F. BUTLER.

Thy flesh to earth, thy soul to God,
We gave, O gallant brother;
And o'er thy grave the awkward squad
Fired into one another!


Beneath this monument which rears its head.
A giant note of admiration--dead,
His life extinguished like a taper's flame.
John Ericsson is lying in his fame.
Behold how massive is the lofty shaft;
How fine the product of the sculptor's craft;
The gold how lavishly applied; the great
Man's statue how impressive and sedate!
Think what the cost-was! It would ill become
Our modesty to specify the sum;
Suffice it that a fair per cent, we're giving
Of what we robbed him of when he was living.


Of Corporal Tanner the head and the trunk
Are here in unconsecrate ground duly sunk.
His legs in the South claim the patriot's tear,
But, stranger, you needn't be blubbering here.


Jay Gould lies here. When he was newly dead
He looked so natural that round his bed

The people stood, in silence all, to weep.
They thought, poor souls! that he did only sleep.


Here Ingalls, sorrowing, has laid
The tools of his infernal trade--
His pen and tongue. So sharp and rude
They grew--so slack in gratitude,
His hand was wounded as he wrote,
And when he spoke he cut his throat.


Within this humble mausoleum
Poor Guiteau's flesh you'll find.
His bones are kept in a museum,
And Tillman has his mind.


Stranger, uncover; here you have in view
The monument of Chauncey M. Depew.
Eater and orator, the whole world round
For feats of tongue and tooth alike renowned.
Pauper in thought but prodigal in speech,
Nothing he knew excepting how to teach.
But in default of something to impart
He multiplied his words with all his heart:
When least he had to say, instructive most--
A clam in wisdom and in wit a ghost.

Dining his way to eminence, he rowed
With knife and fork up water-ways that flowed
From lakes of favor--pulled with all his force
And found each river sweeter than the source.
Like rats, obscure beneath a kitchen floor,
Gnawing and rising till obscure no more,
He ate his way to eminence, and Fame
Inscribes in gravy his immortal name.
A trencher-knight, he, mounted on his belly,
So spurred his charger that its sides were jelly.
Grown desperate at last, it reared and threw him,
And Indigestion, overtaking, slew him.


Here the remains of Schuyler Colfax lie;
Born, all the world knows when, and Heaven knows why.
In '71 he filled the public eye,
In '72 he bade the world good-bye,
In God's good time, with a protesting sigh,
He came to life just long enough to die.


Of Morgan here lies the unspirited clay,
Who secrets of Masonry swore to betray.
He joined the great Order and studied with zeal
The awful arcana he meant to reveal.
At last in chagrin by his own hand he fell--
There was nothing to learn, there was nothing to tell.




A HYMN OF THE MANY.


God's people sorely were oppressed,
I heard their lamentations long;--
I hear their singing, clear and strong,
I see their banners in the West!

The captains shout the battle-cry,
The legions muster in their might;
They turn their faces to the light,
They lift their arms, they testify:

"We sank beneath the Master's thong,
Our chafing chains were ne'er undone;--
Now clash your lances in the sun
And bless your banners with a song!

"God bides his time with patient eyes
While tyrants build upon the land;--
He lifts his face, he lifts his hand,
And from the stones his temples rise.

"Now Freedom waves her joyous wing
Beyond the foemen's shields of gold.
March forward, singing, for, behold,
The right shall rule while God is king!"




ONE MORNING.


Because that I am weak, my love, and ill,
I cannot follow the impatient feet
Of my desire, but sit and watch the beat
Of the unpitying pendulum fulfill
The hour appointed for the air to thrill
And brighten at your coming. O my sweet,
The tale of moments is at last complete--
The tryst is broken on the gusty hill!
O lady, faithful-footed, loyal-eyed,
The long leagues silence me; yet doubt me not;
Think rather that the clock and sun have lied
And all too early, you have sought the spot.
For lo! despair has darkened all the light,
And till I see your face it still is night.




AN ERROR.

Good for he's old? Ah, Youth, you do not dream
How sweet the roses in the autumn seem!




AT THE "NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT."


You 're grayer than one would have thought you:
The climate you have over there
In the East has apparently brought you
Disorders affecting the hair,
Which--pardon me--seems a thought spare.

You'll not take offence at my giving
Expression to notions like these.
You might have been stronger if living
Out here in our sanative breeze.
It's unhealthy here for disease.

No, I'm not as plump as a pullet.
But that's the old wound, you see.
Remember my paunching a bullet?--
And how that it didn't agree
With--well, honest hardtack for me.

Just pass me the wine--I've a helly
And horrible kind of drouth!
When a fellow has that in his belly
Which didn't go in at his mouth
He's hotter than all Down South!

Great Scott! what a nasty day _that_ was--
When every galoot in our crack
Division who didn't lie flat was
Dissuaded from further attack
By the bullet's felicitous whack.

'Twas there that our major slept under
Some cannon of ours on the crest,
Till they woke him by stilling their thunder,
And he cursed them for breaking his rest,
And died in the midst of his jest.

That night--it was late in November--
The dead seemed uncommonly chill
To the touch; and one chap I remember
Who took it exceedingly ill
When I dragged myself over his bill.

Well, comrades, I'm off now--good morning.
Your talk is as pleasant as pie,
But, pardon me, one word of warning:
Speak little of self, say I.
That's my way. God bless you. Good-bye.




THE KING OF BORES.


Abundant bores afflict this world, and some
Are bores of magnitude that-come and--no,
They're always coming, but they never go--
Like funeral pageants, as they drone and hum
Their lurid nonsense like a muffled drum,
Or bagpipe's dread unnecessary flow.
But one superb tormentor I can show--
Prince Fiddlefaddle, Duc de Feefawfum.
He the johndonkey is who, when I pen
Amorous verses in an idle mood
To nobody, or of her, reads them through
And, smirking, says he knows the lady; then
Calls me sly dog. I wish he understood
This tender sonnet's application too.




HISTORY.


What wrecked the Roman power? One says vice,
Another indolence, another dice.
Emascle says polygamy. "Not so,"
Says Impycu--"'twas luxury and show."
The parson, lifting up a brow of brass,
Swears superstition gave the _coup de grace_,
Great Allison, the statesman-chap affirms
'Twas lack of coins (croaks Medico: "'T was worms")
And John P. Jones the swift suggestion collars,
Averring the no coins were silver dollars.
Thus, through the ages, each presuming quack
Turns the poor corpse upon its rotten back,
Holds a new "autopsy" and finds that death
Resulted partly from the want of breath,
But chiefly from some visitation sad
That points his argument or serves his fad.
They're all in error--never human mind
The cause of the disaster has divined.
What slew the Roman power? Well, provided
You'll keep the secret, I will tell you. I did.




THE HERMIT.


To a hunter from the city,
Overtaken by the night,
Spake, in tones of tender pity
For himself, an aged wight:

"I have found the world a fountain
Of deceit and Life a sham.
I have taken to the mountain
And a Holy Hermit am.

"Sternly bent on Contemplation,
Far apart from human kind----
In the hill my habitation,
In the Infinite my mind.

"Ten long years I've lived a dumb thing,
Growing bald and bent with dole.
Vainly seeking for a Something
To engage my gloomy soul.

"Gentle Pilgrim, while my roots you
Eat, and quaff my simple drink,
Please suggest whatever suits you
As a Theme for me to Think."

Then the hunter answered gravely:
"From distraction free, and strife,
You could ponder very bravely
On the Vanity of Life."

"O, thou wise and learned Teacher,
You have solved the Problem well--
You have saved a grateful creature
From the agonies of hell.

"Take another root, another
Cup of water: eat and drink.
Now I have a Subject, brother,
Tell me What, and How, to think."




TO A CRITIC OF TENNYSON.


Affronting fool, subdue your transient light;
When Wisdom's dull dares Folly to be bright:
If Genius stumble in the path to fame,
'Tis decency in dunces to go lame.




THE YEARLY LIE.


A merry Christmas? Prudent, as I live!--
You wish me something that you need not give.

Merry or sad, what does it signify?
To you 't is equal if I laugh, or die.

Your hollow greeting, like a parrot's jest,
Finds all its meaning in the ear addressed.

Why "merry" Christmas? Faith, I'd rather frown
Than grin and caper like a tickled clown.

When fools are merry the judicious weep;
The wise are happy only when asleep.

A present? Pray you give it to disarm
A man more powerful to do you harm.

'T was not your motive? Well, I cannot let
You pay for favors that you'll never get.

Perish the savage custom of the gift,
Founded in terror and maintained in thrift!

What men of honor need to aid their weal
They purchase, or, occasion serving, steal.

Go celebrate the day with turkeys, pies,
Sermons and psalms, and, for the children, lies.

Let Santa Claus descend again the flue;
If Baby doubt it, swear that it is true.

"A lie well stuck to is as good as truth,"
And God's too old to legislate for youth.

Hail Christmas! On my knees and fowl I fall:
For greater grace and better gravy call.
_Vive l'Humbug!_--that's to say, God bless us all!




COOPERATION.


No more the swindler singly seeks his prey;
To hunt in couples is the modern way--
A rascal, from the public to purloin,
An honest man to hide away the coin.




AN APOLOGUE.


A traveler observed one day
A loaded fruit-tree by the way.
And reining in his horse exclaimed:
"The man is greatly to be blamed
Who, careless of good morals, leaves
Temptation in the way of thieves.
Now lest some villain pass this way
And by this fruit be led astray
To bag it, I will kindly pack
It snugly in my saddle-sack."
He did so; then that Salt o' the Earth
Rode on, rejoicing in his worth.




DIAGNOSIS.


Cried Allen Forman: "Doctor, pray
Compose my spirits' strife:
O what may be my chances, say,
Of living all my life?

"For lately I have dreamed of high
And hempen dissolution!
O doctor, doctor, how can I
Amend my constitution?"

The learned leech replied: "You're young
And beautiful and strong--
Permit me to inspect your tongue:
H'm, ah, ahem!--'tis long."

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