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Shapes of Clay

Page 19

by Ambrose Bierce

And drank—then, bloated by the stream,

  And filled with superheated steam,

  Exploded with a rascal smell,

  Remarking, as his fragments fell

  Astonished in the brook: "I'm thinking

  This water's damned unwholesome drinking!"

  EXONERATION.

  When men at candidacy don't connive,

  From that suspicion if their friends would free 'em,

  The teeth and nails with which they did not strive

  Should be exhibited in a museum.

  AZRAEL.

  The moon in the field of the keel-plowed main

  Was watching the growing tide:

  A luminous peasant was driving his wain,

  And he offered my soul a ride.

  But I nourished a sorrow uncommonly tall,

  And I fixed him fast with mine eye.

  "O, peasant," I sang with a dying fall,

  "Go leave me to sing and die."

  The water was weltering round my feet,

  As prone on the beach they lay.

  I chanted my death-song loud and sweet;

  "Kioodle, ioodle, iay!"

  Then I heard the swish of erecting ears

  Which caught that enchanted strain.

  The ocean was swollen with storms of tears

  That fell from the shining swain.

  "O, poet," leapt he to the soaken sand,

  "That ravishing song would make

  The devil a saint." He held out his hand

  And solemnly added: "Shake."

  We shook. "I crave a victim, you see,"

  He said—"you came hither to die."

  The Angel of Death, 't was he! 't was he!

  And the victim he crove was I!

  'T was I, Fred Emerson Brooks, the bard;

  And he knocked me on the head.

  O Lord! I thought it exceedingly hard,

  For I didn't want to be dead.

  "You'll sing no worser for that," said he,

  And he drove with my soul away,

  O, death-song singers, be warned by me,

  Kioodle, ioodle, iay!

  AGAIN.

  Well, I've met her again—at the Mission.

  She'd told me to see her no more;

  It was not a command—a petition;

  I'd granted it once before.

  Yes, granted it, hoping she'd write me.

  Repenting her virtuous freak—

  Subdued myself daily and nightly

  For the better part of a week.

  And then ('twas my duty to spare her

  The shame of recalling me) I

  Just sought her again to prepare her

  For an everlasting good-bye.

  O, that evening of bliss—shall I ever

  Forget it?—with Shakespeare and Poe!

  She said, when 'twas ended: "You're never

  To see me again. And now go."

  As we parted with kisses 'twas human

  And natural for me to smile

  As I thought, "She's in love, and a woman:

  She'll send for me after a while."

  But she didn't; and so—well, the Mission

  Is fine, picturesque and gray;

  It's an excellent place for contrition—

  And sometimes she passes that way.

  That's how it occurred that I met her,

  And that's ah there is to tell—

  Except that I'd like to forget her

  Calm way of remarking: "I'm well."

  It was hardly worth while, all this keying

  My soul to such tensions and stirs

  To learn that her food was agreeing

  With that little stomach of hers.

  HOMO PODUNKENSIS.

  As the poor ass that from his paddock strays

  Might sound abroad his field-companions' praise,

  Recounting volubly their well-bred leer,

  Their port impressive and their wealth of ear,

  Mistaking for the world's assent the clang

  Of echoes mocking his accurst harangue;

  So the dull clown, untraveled though at large,

  Visits the city on the ocean's marge,

  Expands his eyes and marvels to remark

  Each coastwise schooner and each alien bark;

  Prates of "all nations," wonders as he stares

  That native merchants sell imported wares,

  Nor comprehends how in his very view

  A foreign vessel has a foreign crew;

  Yet, faithful to the hamlet of his birth,

  Swears it superior to aught on earth,

  Sighs for the temples locally renowned—

  The village school-house and the village pound—

  And chalks upon the palaces of Rome

  The peasant sentiments of "Home, Sweet Home!"

  A SOCIAL CALL.

  Well, well, old Father Christmas, is it you,

  With your thick neck and thin pretense of virtue?

  Less redness in the nose—nay, even some blue

  Would not, I think, particularly hurt you.

  When seen close to, not mounted in your car,

  You look the drunkard and the pig you are.

  No matter, sit you down, for I am not

  In a gray study, as you sometimes find me.

  Merry? O, no, nor wish to be, God wot,

  But there's another year of pain behind me.

  That's something to be thankful for: the more

  There are behind, the fewer are before.

  I know you, Father Christmas, for a scamp,

  But Heaven endowed me at my soul's creation

  With an affinity to every tramp

  That walks the world and steals its admiration.

  For admiration is like linen left

  Upon the line—got easiest by theft.

  Good God! old man, just think of it! I've stood,

  With brains and honesty, some five-and-twenty

  Long years as champion of all that's good,

  And taken on the mazzard thwacks a-plenty.

  Yet now whose praises do the people bawl?

  Those of the fellows whom I live to maul!

  Why, this is odd!—the more I try to talk

  Of you the more my tongue grows egotistic

  To prattle of myself! I'll try to balk

  Its waywardness and be more altruistic.

  So let us speak of others—how they sin,

  And what a devil of a state they 're in!

  That's all I have to say. Good-bye, old man.

  Next year you possibly may find me scolding—

  Or miss me altogether: Nature's plan

  Includes, as I suppose, a final folding

  Of these poor empty hands. Then drop a tear

  To think they'll never box another ear.

  Примечания

  1

  A famous height overlooking Edinburgh.

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  Ambrose Bierce

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  Ambrose Bierce, Shapes of Clay

 

 

 


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