Shapes of Clay

by Ambrose Bierce

  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 t
he 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,

&nb
sp; 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,