Book: Shapes of Clay

A >> Ambrose Bierce >> Shapes of Clay




Whatever the motive, you'll have to confess
The effort's attended with easy success;
And--pardon the freedom--'tis thought, over here,
'Tis mortification you mask with a sneer.

It's all very well, sir, your scorn to parade
Of the high nasal twang of the Yankee maid,
But, ah, to my lord when he dares to propose
No sound is so sweet as that "Yes" from the nose.

Our ladies, we grant, walk alone in the street
(Observe, by-the-by, on what delicate feet!)
'Tis a habit they got here at home, where they say
The men from politeness go seldom astray.

Ah, well, if the dukes and the earls and that lot
Can stand it (God succor them if they cannot!)
Your commoners ought to assent, I am sure,
And what they 're not called on to suffer, endure.

"'Tis nothing but money?" "Your nobles are bought?"
As to that, I submit, it is commonly thought
That England's a country not specially free
Of Croesi and (if you'll allow it) Croesae.

You've many a widow and many a girl
With money to purchase a duke or an earl.
'Tis a very remarkable thing, you'll agree,
When goods import buyers from over the sea.

Alas for the woman of Albion's isle!
She may simper; as well as she can she may smile;
She may wear pantalettes and an air of repose--
But my lord of the future will talk through his nose.




AN INVOCATION.

[Read at the Celebration of Independence Day in San
Francisco, in 1888.]


Goddess of Liberty! O thou
Whose tearless eyes behold the chain,
And look unmoved upon the slain,
Eternal peace upon thy brow,--

Before thy shrine the races press,
Thy perfect favor to implore--
The proudest tyrant asks no more,
The ironed anarchist no less.

Thine altar-coals that touch the lips
Of prophets kindle, too, the brand
By Discord flung with wanton hand
Among the houses and the ships.

Upon thy tranquil front the star
Burns bleak and passionless and white,
Its cold inclemency of light
More dreadful than the shadows are.

Thy name we do not here invoke
Our civic rites to sanctify:
Enthroned in thy remoter sky,
Thou heedest not our broken yoke.

Thou carest not for such as we:
Our millions die to serve the still
And secret purpose of thy will.
They perish--what is that to thee?

The light that fills the patriot's tomb
Is not of thee. The shining crown
Compassionately offered down
To those who falter in the gloom,

And fall, and call upon thy name,
And die desiring--'tis the sign
Of a diviner love than thine,
Rewarding with a richer fame.

To him alone let freemen cry
Who hears alike the victor's shout,
The song of faith, the moan of doubt,
And bends him from his nearer sky.

God of my country and my race!
So greater than the gods of old--
So fairer than the prophets told
Who dimly saw and feared thy face,--

Who didst but half reveal thy will
And gracious ends to their desire,
Behind the dawn's advancing fire
Thy tender day-beam veiling still,--

To whom the unceasing suns belong,
And cause is one with consequence,--
To whose divine, inclusive sense
The moan is blended with the song,--

Whose laws, imperfect and unjust,
Thy just and perfect purpose serve:
The needle, howsoe'er it swerve,
Still warranting the sailor's trust,--

God, lift thy hand and make us free
To crown the work thou hast designed.
O, strike away the chains that bind
Our souls to one idolatry!

The liberty thy love hath given
We thank thee for. We thank thee for
Our great dead fathers' holy war
Wherein our manacles were riven.

We thank thee for the stronger stroke
Ourselves delivered and incurred
When--thine incitement half unheard--
The chains we riveted we broke.

We thank thee that beyond the sea
The people, growing ever wise,
Turn to the west their serious eyes
And dumbly strive to be as we.

As when the sun's returning flame
Upon the Nileside statue shone,
And struck from the enchanted stone
The music of a mighty fame,

Let Man salute the rising day
Of Liberty, but not adore.
'Tis Opportunity--no more--
A useful, not a sacred, ray.

It bringeth good, it bringeth ill,
As he possessing shall elect.
He maketh it of none effect
Who walketh not within thy will.

Give thou or more or less, as we
Shall serve the right or serve the wrong.
Confirm our freedom but so long
As we are worthy to be free.

But when (O, distant be the time!)
Majorities in passion draw
Insurgent swords to murder Law,
And all the land is red with crime;

Or--nearer menace!--when the band
Of feeble spirits cringe and plead
To the gigantic strength of Greed,
And fawn upon his iron hand;--

Nay, when the steps to state are worn
In hollows by the feet of thieves,
And Mammon sits among the sheaves
And chuckles while the reapers mourn;

Then stay thy miracle!--replace
The broken throne, repair the chain,
Restore the interrupted reign
And veil again thy patient face.

Lo! here upon the world's extreme
We stand with lifted arms and dare
By thine eternal name to swear
Our country, which so fair we deem--

Upon whose hills, a bannered throng,
The spirits of the sun display
Their flashing lances day by day
And hear the sea's pacific song--

Shall be so ruled in right and grace
That men shall say: "O, drive afield
The lawless eagle from the shield,
And call an angel to the place!"




RELIGION.


Hassan Bedreddin, clad in rags, ill-shod,
Sought the great temple of the living God.
The worshippers arose and drove him forth,
And one in power beat him with a rod.

"Allah," he cried, "thou seest what I got;
Thy servants bar me from the sacred spot."
"Be comforted," the Holy One replied;
"It is the only place where I am not."




A MORNING FANCY.


I drifted (or I seemed to) in a boat
Upon the surface of a shoreless sea
Whereon no ship nor anything did float,
Save only the frail bark supporting me;
And that--it was so shadowy--seemed to be
Almost from out the very vapors wrought
Of the great ocean underneath its keel;
And all that blue profound appeared as naught
But thicker sky, translucent to reveal,
Miles down, whatever through its spaces glided,
Or at the bottom traveled or abided.

Great cities there I saw--of rich and poor,
The palace and the hovel; mountains, vales,
Forest and field, the desert and the moor,
Tombs of the good and wise who'd lived in jails,
And seas of denser fluid, white with sails
Pushed at by currents moving here and there
And sensible to sight above the flat
Of that opaquer deep. Ah, strange and fair
The nether world that I was gazing at
With beating heart from that exalted level,
And--lest I founder--trembling like the devil!

The cities all were populous: men swarmed
In public places--chattered, laughed and wept;
And savages their shining bodies warmed
At fires in primal woods. The wild beast leapt
Upon its prey and slew it as it slept.
Armies went forth to battle on the plain
So far, far down in that unfathomed deep
The living seemed as silent as the slain,
Nor even the widows could be heard to weep.
One might have thought their shaking was but laughter;
And, truly, most were married shortly after.

Above the wreckage of that silent fray
Strange fishes swam in circles, round and round--
Black, double-finned; and once a little way
A bubble rose and burst without a sound
And a man tumbled out upon the ground.
Lord! 'twas an eerie thing to drift apace
On that pellucid sea, beneath black skies
And o'er the heads of an undrowning race;
And when I woke I said--to her surprise
Who came with chocolate, for me to drink it:
"The atmosphere is deeper than you think it."




VISIONS OF SIN.

KRASLAJORSK, SIBERIA, March 29.

"My eyes are better, and I shall travel slowly toward home."
DANENHOWER.


From the regions of the Night,
Coming with recovered sight--
From the spell of darkness free,
What will Danenhower see?

He will see when he arrives,
Doctors taking human lives.
He will see a learned judge
Whose decision will not budge
Till both litigants are fleeced
And his palm is duly greased.
Lawyers he will see who fight
Day by day and night by night;
Never both upon a side,
Though their fees they still divide.
Preachers he will see who teach
That it is divine to preach--
That they fan a sacred fire
And are worthy of their hire.
He will see a trusted wife

(Pride of some good husband's life)
Enter at a certain door
And--but he will see no more.
He will see Good Templars reel--
See a prosecutor steal,
And a father beat his child.
He'll perhaps see Oscar Wilde.

From the regions of the Night
Coming with recovered sight--
From the bliss of blindness free,
That's what Danenhower'll see.

1882.




THE TOWN OF DAE.


_Swains and maidens, young and old,
You to me this tale have told._

Where the squalid town of Dae
Irks the comfortable sea,
Spreading webs to gather fish,
As for wealth we set a wish,
Dwelt a king by right divine,
Sprung from Adam's royal line,
Town of Dae by the sea,
Divers kinds of kings there be.

Name nor fame had Picklepip:
Ne'er a soldier nor a ship
Bore his banners in the sun;
Naught knew he of kingly sport,
And he held his royal court
Under an inverted tun.
Love and roses, ages through,
Bloom where cot and trellis stand;
Never yet these blossoms grew--
Never yet was room for two--
In a cask upon the strand.

So it happened, as it ought,
That his simple schemes he wrought
Through the lagging summer's day
In a solitary way.
So it happened, as was best,
That he took his nightly rest
With no dreadful incubus
This way eyed and that way tressed,
Featured thus, and thus, and thus,
Lying lead-like on a breast
By cares of State enough oppressed.
Yet in dreams his fancies rude
Claimed a lordly latitude.
Town of Dae by the sea,
Dreamers mate above their state
And waken back to their degree.

Once to cask himself away
He prepared at close of day.
As he tugged with swelling throat
At a most unkingly coat--
Not to get it off, but on,
For the serving sun was gone--
Passed a silk-appareled sprite
Toward her castle on the height,
Seized and set the garment right.
Turned the startled Picklepip--
Splendid crimson cheek and lip!
Turned again to sneak away,

But she bade the villain stay,
Bade him thank her, which he did
With a speech that slipped and slid,
Sprawled and stumbled in its gait
As a dancer tries to skate.
Town of Dae by the sea,
In the face of silk and lace
Rags too bold should never be.

Lady Minnow cocked her head:
"Mister Picklepip," she said,
"Do you ever think to wed?"
Town of Dae by the sea,
No fair lady ever made a
Wicked speech like that to me!

Wretched little Picklepip
Said he hadn't any ship,
Any flocks at his command,
Nor to feed them any land;
Said he never in his life
Owned a mine to keep a wife.
But the guilty stammer so
That his meaning wouldn't flow;
So he thought his aim to reach
By some figurative speech:
Said his Fate had been unkind
Had pursued him from behind
(How the mischief could it else?)

Came upon him unaware,
Caught him by the collar--there
Gushed the little lady's glee
Like a gush of golden bells:
"Picklepip, why, that is _me_!"
Town of Dae by the sea,
Grammar's for great scholars--she
Loved the summer and the lea.

Stupid little Picklepip
Allowed the subtle hint to slip--
Maundered on about the ship
That he did not chance to own;
Told this grievance o'er and o'er,
Knowing that she knew before;
Told her how he dwelt alone.
Lady Minnow, for reply,
Cut him off with "So do I!"
But she reddened at the fib;
Servitors had she, _ad lib._
Town of Dae by the sea,
In her youth who speaks no truth
Ne'er shall young and honest be.

Witless little Picklepip
Manned again his mental ship
And veered her with a sudden shift.
Painted to the lady's thought
How he wrestled and he wrought

Stoutly with the swimming drift
By the kindly river brought
From the mountain to the sea,
Fuel for the town of Dae.
Tedious tale for lady's ear:
From her castle on the height,
She had watched her water-knight
Through the seasons of a year,
Challenge more than met his view
And conquer better than he knew.
Now she shook her pretty pate
And stamped her foot--'t was growing late:
"Mister Picklepip, when I
Drifting seaward pass you by;
When the waves my forehead kiss
And my tresses float above--
Dead and drowned for lack of love--
You'll be sorry, sir, for this!"
And the silly creature cried--
Feared, perchance, the rising tide.
Town of Dae by the sea,
Madam Adam, when she had 'em,
May have been as bad as she.

_Fiat lux!_ Love's lumination
Fell in floods of revelation!
Blinded brain by world aglare,
Sense of pulses in the air,

Sense of swooning and the beating
Of a voice somewhere repeating
Something indistinctly heard!
And the soul of Picklepip
Sprang upon his trembling lip,
But he spake no further word
Of the wealth he did not own;
In that moment had outgrown
Ship and mine and flock and land--
Even his cask upon the strand.
Dropped a stricken star to earth,
Type of wealth and worldly worth.
Clomb the moon into the sky,
Type of love's immensity!
Shaking silver seemed the sea,
Throne of God the town of Dae!
Town of Dae by the sea,
From above there cometh love,
Blessing all good souls that be.




AN ANARCHIST.


False to his art and to the high command
God laid upon him, Markham's rebel hand
Beats all in vain the harp he touched before:
It yields a jingle and it yields no more.
No more the strings beneath his finger-tips
Sing harmonies divine. No more his lips,
Touched with a living coal from sacred fires,
Lead the sweet chorus of the golden wires.
The voice is raucous and the phrases squeak;
They labor, they complain, they sweat, they reek!
The more the wayward, disobedient song
Errs from the right to celebrate the wrong,
More diligently still the singer strums,
To drown the horrid sound, with all his thumbs.
Gods, what a spectacle! The angels lean
Out of high Heaven to view the sorry scene,
And Israfel, "whose heart-strings are a lute,"
Though now compassion makes their music mute,
Among the weeping company appears,
Pearls in his eyes and cotton in his ears.




AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE.


Once I "dipt into the future far as human eye could see,"
And saw--it was not Sandow, nor John Sullivan, but she--
The Emancipated Woman, who was weeping as she ran
Here and there for the discovery of Expurgated Man.
But the sun of Evolution ever rose and ever set,
And that tardiest of mortals hadn't evoluted yet.
Hence the tears that she cascaded, hence the sighs that tore apart
All the tendinous connections of her indurated heart.
Cried Emancipated Woman, as she wearied of the search:
"In Advancing I have left myself distinctly in the lurch!
Seeking still a worthy partner, from the land of brutes and dudes
I have penetrated rashly into manless solitudes.
Now without a mate of any kind where am I?--that's to say,
Where shall I be to-morrow?--where exert my rightful sway
And the purifying strength of my emancipated mind?
Can solitude be lifted up, vacuity refined?
Calling, calling from the shadows in the rear of my Advance--
From the Region of Unprogress in the Dark Domain of Chance--
Long I heard the Unevolvable beseeching my return
To share the degradation he's reluctant to unlearn.
But I fancy I detected--though I pray it wasn't that--
A low reverberation, like an echo in a hat.
So I've held my way regardless, evoluting year by year,
Till I'm what you now behold me--or would if you were here--
A condensed Emancipation and a Purifier proud
An Independent Entity appropriately loud!
Independent? Yes, in spirit, but (O, woful, woful state!)
Doomed to premature extinction by privation of a mate--
To extinction or reversion, for Unexpurgated Man
Still awaits me in the backward if I sicken of the van.
O the horrible dilemma!--to be odiously linked
With an Undeveloped Species, or become a Type Extinct!"

As Emancipated Woman wailed her sorrow to the air,
Stalking out of desolation came a being strange and rare--
Plato's Man!--bipedal, featherless from mandible to rump,
Its wings two quilless flippers and its tail a plumeless stump.
First it scratched and then it clucked, as if in hospitable terms
It invited her to banquet on imaginary worms.
Then it strutted up before her with a lifting of the head,
And in accents of affection and of sympathy it said:
"My estate is some 'at 'umble, but I'm qualified to draw
Near the hymeneal altar and whack up my heart and claw
To Emancipated Anything as walks upon the earth;
And them things is at your service for whatever they are worth.
I'm sure to be congenial, marm, nor e'er deserve a scowl--
I'm Emancipated Rooster, I am Expurgated Fowl!"

From the future and its wonders I withdrew my gaze, and then
Wrote this wild unfestive prophecy about the Coming Hen.




ARMA VIRUMQUE.


"Ours is a Christian Army"; so he said
A regiment of bangomen who led.
"And ours a Christian Navy," added he
Who sailed a thunder-junk upon the sea.
Better they know than men unwarlike do
What is an army and a navy, too.
Pray God there may be sent them by-and-by
The knowledge what a Christian is, and why.
For somewhat lamely the conception runs
Of a brass-buttoned Jesus firing guns.




ON A PROPOSED CREMATORY.


When a fair bridge is builded o'er the gulf
Between two cities, some ambitious fool,
Hot for distinction, pleads for earliest leave
To push his clumsy feet upon the span,
That men in after years may single him,
Saying: "Behold the fool who first went o'er!"
So be it when, as now the promise is,
Next summer sees the edifice complete
Which some do name a crematorium,
Within the vantage of whose greater maw's
Quicker digestion we shall cheat the worm
And circumvent the handed mole who loves,
With tunnel, adit, drift and roomy stope,
To mine our mortal parts in all their dips
And spurs and angles. Let the fool stand forth
To link his name with this fair enterprise,
As first decarcassed by the flame. And if
With rival greedings for the fiery fame
They push in clamoring multitudes, or if
With unaccustomed modesty they all
Hold off, being something loth to qualify,
Let me select the fittest for the rite.
By heaven! I'll make so warrantable, wise
And excellent censure of their true deserts,
And such a searching canvass of their claims,
That none shall bait the ballot. I'll spread my choice
Upon the main and general of those
Who, moved of holy impulse, pulpit-born,
Protested 'twere a sacrilege to burn
God's gracious images, designed to rot,
And bellowed for the right of way for each
Distempered carrion through the water pipes.
With such a sturdy, boisterous exclaim
They did discharge themselves from their own throats
Against the splintered gates of audience
'Twere wholesomer to take them in at mouth
Than ear. These shall burn first: their ignible
And seasoned substances--trunks, legs and arms,
Blent indistinguishable in a mass,
Like winter-woven serpents in a pit--
None vantaged of his fellow-fools in point
Of precedence, and all alive--shall serve
As fueling to fervor the retort
For after cineration of true men.




A DEMAND.


You promised to paint me a picture,
Dear Mat,
And I was to pay you in rhyme.
Although I am loth to inflict your
Most easy of consciences, I'm
Of opinion that fibbing is awful,
And breaking a contract unlawful,
Indictable, too, as a crime,
A slight and all that.

If, Lady Unbountiful, any
Of that
By mortals called pity has part
In your obdurate soul--if a penny
You care for the health of my heart,
By performing your undertaking
You'll succor that organ from breaking--
And spare it for some new smart,
As puss does a rat.

Do you think it is very becoming,
Dear Mat,
To deny me my rights evermore
And--bless you! if I begin summing
Your sins they will make a long score!
You never were generous, madam,
If you had been Eve and I Adam
You'd have given me naught but the core,
And little of that.

Had I been content with a Titian,
A cat
By Landseer, a meadow by Claude,
No doubt I'd have had your permission
To take it--by purchase abroad.
But why should I sail o'er the ocean
For Landseers and Claudes? I've a notion
All's bad that the critics belaud.
I wanted a Mat.

Presumption's a sin, and I suffer
For that:
But still you _did_ say that sometime,
If I'd pay you enough (here's enougher--
That's more than enough) of rhyme
You'd paint me a picture. I pay you
Hereby in advance; and I pray you
Condone, while you can, your crime,
And send me a Mat.

But if you don't do it I warn you,
Dear Mat,
I'll raise such a clamor and cry
On Parnassus the Muses will scorn you
As mocker of poets and fly
With bitter complaints to Apollo:
"Her spirit is proud, her heart hollow,
Her beauty"--they'll hardly deny,
On second thought, _that_!




THE WEATHER WIGHT.


The way was long, the hill was steep,
My footing scarcely I could keep.

The night enshrouded me in gloom,
I heard the ocean's distant boom--

The trampling of the surges vast
Was borne upon the rising blast.

"God help the mariner," I cried,
"Whose ship to-morrow braves the tide!"

Then from the impenetrable dark
A solemn voice made this remark:

"For this locality--warm, bright;
Barometer unchanged; breeze light."

"Unseen consoler-man," I cried,
"Whoe'er you are, where'er abide,

"Thanks--but my care is somewhat less
For Jack's, than for my own, distress.

"Could I but find a friendly roof,
Small odds what weather were aloof.

"For he whose comfort is secure
Another's woes can well endure."

"The latch-string's out," the voice replied,
"And so's the door--jes' step inside."

Then through the darkness I discerned
A hovel, into which I turned.

Groping about beneath its thatch,
I struck my head and then a match.

A candle by that gleam betrayed
Soon lent paraffinaceous aid.

A pallid, bald and thin old man
I saw, who this complaint began:

"Through summer suns and winter snows
I sets observin' of my toes.

"I rambles with increasin' pain
The path of duty, but in vain.

"Rewards and honors pass me by--
No Congress hears this raven cry!"

Filled with astonishment, I spoke:
"Thou ancient raven, why this croak?

"With observation of your toes
What Congress has to do, Heaven knows!

"And swallow me if e'er I knew
That one could sit and ramble too!"

To answer me that ancient swain
Took up his parable again:

"Through winter snows and summer suns
A Weather Bureau here I runs.

"I calls the turn, and can declare
Jes' when she'll storm and when she'll fair.

"Three times a day I sings out clear
The probs to all which wants to hear.

"Some weather stations run with light
Frivolity is seldom right.

"A scientist from times remote,
In Scienceville my birth is wrote.

"And when I h'ist the 'rainy' sign
Jes' take your clo'es in off the line."

"Not mine, O marvelous old man,
The methods of your art to scan,

"Yet here no instruments there be--
Nor 'ometer nor 'scope I see.

"Did you (if questions you permit)
At the asylum leave your kit?"

That strange old man with motion rude
Grew to surprising altitude.

"Tools (and sarcazzems too) I scorns--
I tells the weather by my corns.

"No doors and windows here you see--
The wind and m'isture enters free.

"No fires nor lights, no wool nor fur
Here falsifies the tempercher.

"My corns unleathered I expose
To feel the rain's foretellin' throes.

"No stockin' from their ears keeps out
The comin' tempest's warnin' shout.

"Sich delicacy some has got
They know next summer's to be hot.

"This here one says (for that he's best):
'Storm center passin' to the west.'

"This feller's vitals is transfixed
With frost for Janawary sixt'.

"One chap jes' now is occy'pied
In fig'rin on next Fridy's tide.

"I've shaved this cuss so thin and true
He'll spot a fog in South Peru.

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