Ambrose Bierce

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.

That land full surely hastens to its
Where public sycophants in homage
The populace to flatter, and
The doubled echoes of its loud conceit.

Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see, And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be— Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth, With a record of unreason seldome paralleled on earth. While I looked he…

Thou shalt no God but me adore: 'Twere too expensive to have more. No images nor idols make For Roger Ingersoll to break. Take not God's name in vain: select A time when it will have effect. Work not on Sabbath days at all, But go to see the…

The flabby wine-skin of his
Yields to some pathologic strain,
And voids from its unstored
The driblet of an aphorism.

Father! whose hard and cruel law Is part of thy compassion's plan, Thy works presumptuously we
For what the prophets say they saw.
Unbidden still the awful slope Walling us in we climb to gain Assurance of the shining
That faith…

O Liberty,
God-gifted—
Young and immortal maid— In your high hand uplifted,
The torch declares your trade. Its crimson menace, flaming

I
AW—’t was in a dream, the other night—A man whose hair with age was thin and white; One hundred years had bettered by his birth,
And still his step was firm, his eye was bright.
Before him and about him pressed a crowd.

The pig is taught by sermons and
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.
Judibras.
Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.

When I was young and full of faith And other fads that youngsters cherishA cry rose as of one that saith With emphasis: "Help or I perish!"'Twas heard in all the land, and men The sound were each to each repeating.
It made my heart…

II know not if it was a dream.
I viewedA city where the restless multitude,
Between the eastern and the western
Had reared gigantic fabrics, strong and rude.

Have but one God: thy knees were sore If bent in prayer to three or four. Adore no images save those The coinage of thy country shows. Take not the Name in vain.
Direct Thy swearing unto some effect. Thy hand from Sunday work be held— Work…

How blest the land that counts among
Her sons so many good and wise, To execute great feats of tongue
When troubles rise. Behold them mounting every stump,
By speech our liberty to guard. Observe their courage—see them jump

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!
An inept political general

As sweet as the look of a
Saluting the eyes of a
That blossom to blue as the
Is ablush to the glances above her,

OU know, my friends, with what a brave carouseI made a second marriage in my house,— Divorced old barren Reason from my
And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse.” So sang the Lord of Poets.
In a gleam
Of light that made her like…

Twas a sick young man with a face
And an eye that was all alone;
And he shook his head in a hopeless
As he sat on a roadside stone."O, ailing youth, what untoward

What!
Salomon! such words from you,  Who call yourself a soldier?
Well,  The Southern brother where he
Slept all your base oration through.

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,…

Words shouting, singing, smiling, frowning—
Sense lacking. Ah, nothing, more obscure than Browning,
Save blacking.
Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.

With crow bones all the land is white,
From the gates of morn to the gates of night.
Picked clean, they lie on the cumbered ground,
And the politician's paunch is round;

What! "Out of danger?" Can the slighted
Or canting Pharisee no more defame?
Will Treachery caress my hand no more,
Nor Hatred lie alurk about my door?—Ingratitude, with benefits dismissed

Tut-tut! give back the flags — how can you care, You veterans and heroes?
Why should you at a kind intention swear Like twenty Neros? Suppose the act was not so overwise — Suppose it was illegal;
Is't well on such a question to arise…

Aeronaut, you're fairly caught,
Despite your bubble's leaven:
Out of the skies a lady's eyes
Have brought you down to Heaven!