Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
One Of The Redeemed
Saint Peter, standing at the Gate, beheldA soul whose body Death had lately felled.A pleasant soul as ever was, he seemed:His step was joyous and his..
© Ambrose Bierce
One Morning
Because that I am weak, my love, and ill,I cannot follow the impatient feetOf my desire, but sit and watch the beatOf the unpitying pendulum..
© Ambrose Bierce
One Mood's Expression
See, Lord, fanatics all arrayedFor revolution!To foil their villainous crusadeUnsheathe again the sacred bladeOf persecution. What though through..
© Ambrose Bierce
One Judge
Wallace, created on a noble planTo show us that a Judge can be a Man;Through moral mire exhaling mortal stenchGod-guided sweet and foot-clean to the..
© Ambrose Bierce
One And One Are Two
The trumpet sounded and the deadCame forth from earth and ocean,And Pickering arose and spedAloft with wobbling motion.'What makes him fly..
© Ambrose Bierce
On The Wedding Of The Aeronaut
Aeronaut, you're fairly caught,Despite your bubble's leaven:Out of the skies a lady's eyesHave brought you down to Heaven!No more, no more you'll..
© Ambrose Bierce
On The Platform
When Dr. Bill Bartlett stepped out of the humOf Mammon's distracting and wearisome strifeTo stand and deliver a lecture on 'SomeConditions of..
© Ambrose Bierce
On Stone
As in a dream, strange epitaphs I see,Inscribed on yet unquarried stone,Where wither flowers yet unstrownThe Campo Santo of the time to be.
© Ambrose Bierce
On A Proposed Crematory
When a fair bridge is builded o'er the gulfBetween two cities, some ambitious fool,Hot for distinction, pleads for earliest leaveTo push his clumsy..
© Ambrose Bierce
Omnes Vanitas
Alas for ambition's possessor!Alas for the famous and proud!The Isle of Manhattan's best dresserIs wearing a hand-me-down shroud.The world has..
© Ambrose Bierce
Novum Organum
In Bacon see the culminating primeOf Anglo-Saxon intellect and crime.He dies and Nature, settling his affairs,Parts his endowments among us, his..
© Ambrose Bierce
Not Guilty
'I saw your charms in another's arms,'Said a Grecian swain with his blood a-boil;'And he kissed you fair as he held you there,A willing bird in a..
© Ambrose Bierce
Nimrod
There were brave men, some one has truly said,Before Atrides (those were mostly deadBehind him) and ere you could e'er occurActaeon lived, Nimrod and..
© Ambrose Bierce
Nanine
We heard a song-bird trilling'T was but a night ago.Such rapture he was rillingAs only we could know.This morning he is flingingHis music from the..
© Ambrose Bierce
My Monument
It is pleasant to think, as I'm watching my inkA-drying along my paper,That a monument fine will surely be mineWhen death has extinguished my..
© Ambrose Bierce
My Lord Poet
'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat;'Who sings for nobles, he should noble be.There's no _non sequitur_, I think, in that,And this is logic..
© Ambrose Bierce
Mr. Sheets
The Devil stood before the gateOf Heaven. He had a single mate:Behind him, in his shadow, slunkClay Sheets in a perspiring funk.'Saint Peter, see..
© Ambrose Bierce
Mr. Fink's Debating Donkey
Of a person known as Peters I will humbly crave your leaveAn unusual adventure into narrative to weaveMr. William Perry Peters, of the town of..
© Ambrose Bierce
Montefiore
I SAW—’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..
© Ambrose Bierce
Montague Leverson
As some enormous violet that towersColossal o'er the heads of lowlier flowersIts giant petals royally displayed,And casting half the landscape into..
© Ambrose Bierce
Metempsychosis [once With Christ He Entered Salem]
Once with Christ he entered Salem,Once in Moab bullied Balaam,Once by Apuleius stagedHe the pious much enraged.And, again, his head, as beaver,Topped..
© Ambrose Bierce
Metempsychosis
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.ST. JOHN _a Presidential Candidate_MCDONALD _a Defeated Aspirant_MRS. HAYES _an Ex-President_PITTS-STEVENS _a Water Nymph__Scene_-A..
© Ambrose Bierce
Mendax
High Lord of Liars, Pickering, to theeLet meaner mortals bend the subject knee!Thine is mendacity's imperial crown,Alike by genius, action and..
© Ambrose Bierce
Matter For Gratitude
Be pleased, O Lord, to take a people's thanksThat Thine avenging sword has spared our ranks-That Thou hast parted from our lips the cupAnd forced our..
© Ambrose Bierce
Master Of Three Arts
Your various talents, Goldenson, commandRespect: you are a poet and can draw.It is a pity that your gifted handShould ever have been raised against..
© Ambrose Bierce