Ambrose Bierce: Verses about 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.

I reckon that ye never knew,
That dandy slugger, Tom Carew,
He had a touch as light an' free
As that of any honey-bee;
But where it lit there wasn't much
To jestify another touch.
O, what a Sunday-school it was
To watch him puttin' up his paws
An' roominate upon their heft
Particular his holy left!
Tom was my style-that's all I say;
Some others may be equal gay.
What's come of him? Dunno, I'm sure
He's dead-which make his fate obscure.
I only started in to clear
One vital p'int in his career,
Which is to say-afore he died
He soiled his erming mighty snide.
Ye see he took to politics
And learnt them statesmen-fellers' tricks;
Pulled wires, wore stovepipe hats, used scent,
Just like he was the President;
Went to the Legislator; spoke
Right out agin the British yoke
But that was right. He let his hair
Grow long to qualify for Mayor,
An' once or twice he poked his snoot
In Congress like a low galoot!
It had to come-no gent can hope
To wrastle God agin the rope.
Tom went from bad to wuss. Being dead,
I s'pose it oughtn't to be said,
For sech inikities as flow
From politics ain't fit to know;
But, if you think it's actin' white
To tell it-Thomas throwed a fight!