Ambrose Bierce: Verses about Woman

When Man and Woman had been made,
All but the disposition,
The Devil to the workshop strayed,
And somehow gained admission.

The Master rested from his work,
For this was on a Sunday,
The man was snoring like a Turk,
Content to wait till Monday.

'Too bad!' the Woman cried; 'Oh, why,
Does slumber not benumb me?
A disposition! Oh, I die
To know if 'twill become me!'

The Adversary said: 'No doubt
'Twill be extremely fine, ma'am,
Though sure 'tis long to be without
I beg to lend you mine, ma'am.'

The Devil's disposition when
She'd got, of course she wore it,
For she'd no disposition then,
Nor now has, to restore it.

What, madam, run for School Director? You?
And want my vote and influence? Well, well,
That beats me! Gad! where _are_ we drifting to?
In all my life I never have heard tell
Of such sublime presumption, and I smell
A nigger in the fence! Excuse me, madam;
We statesmen sometimes speak like the old Adam.

But now you mention it-well, well, who knows?
We might, that's certain, give the sex a show.
I have a cousin-teacher. I suppose
If I stand in and you 're elected-no?
You'll make no bargains? That's a pretty go!
But understand that school administration
Belongs to Politics, not Education.

We'll pass the teacher deal; but it were wise
To understand each other at the start.
You know my business-books and school supplies;
You'd hardly, if elected, have the heart
Some small advantage to deny me-part
Of all my profits to be yours. What? Stealing?
Please don't express yourself with so much feeling.

You pain me, truly. Now one question more.
Suppose a fair young man should ask a place
As teacher-would you (pardon) shut the door
Of the Department in his handsome face
Until-I know not how to put the case
Would you extort a kiss to pay your favor?
Good Lord! you laugh? I thought the matter graver.

Well, well, we can't do business, I suspect:
A woman has no head for useful tricks.
My profitable offers you reject
And will not promise anything to fix
The opposition. That's not politics.
Good morning. Stay-I'm chaffing you, conceitedly.
Madam, I mean to vote for you-repeatedly.

Saint Peter at the gate of Heaven displayed
The tools and terrors of his awful trade;
The key, the frown as pitiless as night,
That slays intending trespassers at sight,
And, at his side in easy reach, the curled
Interrogation points all ready to be hurled.

Straight up the shining cloudway (it so chanced
No others were about) a soul advanced
A fat, orbicular and jolly soul
With laughter-lines upon each rosy jowl-
A monk so prepossessing that the saint
Admired him, breathless, until weak and faint,
Forgot his frown and all his questions too,
Forgoing even the customary 'Who?'
Threw wide the gate and, with a friendly grin,
Said, ''Tis a very humble home, but pray walk in.'

The soul smiled pleasantly. 'Excuse me, please
Who's in there?' By insensible degrees
The impudence dispelled the saint's esteem,
As growing snores annihilate a dream.
The frown began to blacken on his brow,
His hand to reach for 'Whence?' and 'Why?' and 'How?'
'O, no offense, I hope,' the soul explained;
'I'm rather-well, particular. I've strained
A point in coming here at all; 'tis said
That Susan Anthony (I hear she's dead
At last) and all her followers are here.
As company, they'd be-confess it-rather queer.'

The saint replied, his rising anger past:
'What can I do?-the law is hard-and-fast,
Albeit unwritten and on earth unknown-
An oral order issued from the Throne.
By but one sin has Woman e'er incurred
God's wrath. To accuse Them Loud of that would be absurd.'

That friar sighed, but, calling up a smile,
Said, slowly turning on his heel the while:
'Farewell, my friend. Put up the chain and bar
I'm going, so please you, where the pretty women are.'

OM JONESMITH _(loquitur)_: I've slept right through
The night-a rather clever thing to do.
How soundly women sleep _(looks at his wife.)
They're all alike. The sweetest thing in life
Is woman when she lies with folded tongue,
Its toil completed and its day-song sung.
(_Thump_) That's the morning paper. What a bore
That it should be delivered at the door.
There ought to be some expeditious way
To get it _to_ one. By this long delay
The fizz gets off the news _(a rap is heard)_.
That's Jane, the housemaid; she's an early bird;
She's brought it to the bedroom door, good soul.
_(Gets up and takes it in.)_ Upon the whole
The system's not so bad a one. What's here?
Gad, if they've not got after-listen dear
_(To sleeping wife)_-young Gastrotheos! Well,
If Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell
She'll shriek again-with laughter-seeing how
They treated Gast. with her. Yet I'll allow
'T is right if he goes dining at The Pup
With Mrs. Thing.

WIFE _(briskly, waking up)_:
With her? The hussy! Yes, it serves him right.

JONESMITH (_continuing to 'seek the light'_):
What's this about old Impycu? That's good!
Grip-that's the funny man-says Impy should
Be used as a decoy in shooting tramps.
I knew old Impy when he had the 'stamps'
To buy us all out, and he wasn't then
So bad a chap to have about. Grip's pen
Is just a tickler!-and the world, no doubt,
Is better with it than it was without.
What? thirteen ladies-Jumping Jove! we know
Them nearly all!-who gamble at a low
And very shocking game of cards called 'draw'!
O cracky, how they'll squirm! ha-ha! haw-haw!
Let's see what else (_wife snores_). Well, I'll be blest!
A woman doesn't understand a jest.
Hello! What, what? the scurvy wretch proceeds
To take a fling at _me_, condemn him! (_reads_):
Tom Jonesmith-my name's Thomas, vulgar cad!-_Of
the new Shavings Bank_-the man's gone mad!
That's libelous; I'll have him up for that-_Has
had his corns cut_. Devil take the rat!
What business is 't of his, I'd like to know?
He didn't have to cut them. Gods! what low
And scurril things our papers have become!
You skim their contents and you get but scum.
Here, Mary, (_waking wife_) I've been attacked
In this vile sheet. By Jove, it is a fact!

WIFE (_reading it_): How wicked! Who do you
Suppose 't was wrote it?

JONESMITH: Who? why, who
But Grip, the so-called funny man-he wrote
Me up because I'd not discount his note.
(_Blushes like sunset at the hideous lie-
He'll think of one that's better by and by-
Throws down the paper on the floor, and treads
A lively measure on it-kicks the shreds
And patches all about the room, and still
Performs his jig with unabated will._)

WIFE (_warbling sweetly, like an Elfland horn_):
Dear, do be careful of that second corn.

STANLEY.
Noting some great man's composition vile:
A head of wisdom and a heart of guile,
A will to conquer and a soul to dare,
Joined to the manners of a dancing bear,
Fools unaccustomed to the wide survey
Of various Nature's compensating sway,
Untaught to separate the wheat and chaff,
To praise the one and at the other laugh,
Yearn all in vain and impotently seek
Some flawless hero upon whom to wreak
The sycophantic worship of the weak.
Not so the wise, from superstition free,
Who find small pleasure in the bended knee;
Quick to discriminate 'twixt good and bad,
And willing in the king to find the cad-
No reason seen why genius and conceit,
The power to dazzle and the will to cheat,
The love of daring and the love of gin,
Should not dwell, peaceful, in a single skin.
To such, great Stanley, you're a hero still,
Despite your cradling in a tub for swill.
Your peasant manners can't efface the mark
Of light you drew across the Land of Dark.

In you the extremes of character are wed,
To serve the quick and villify the dead.
Hero and clown! O, man of many sides,
The Muse of Truth adores you and derides,
And sheds, impartial, the revealing ray
Upon your head of gold and feet of clay.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

HAYSEED _a Granger_
NOZZLE _a Miner_
RINGDIVVY _a Statesman_
FEEGOBBLE _a Lawyer_
JUNKET _a Committee_

_Scene_-Yuba Dam.

_Feegobble, Ringdivvy, Nozzle_.


NOZZLE:

My friends, since '51 I have pursued
The evil tenor of my watery way,
Removing hills as by an act of faith

RINGDIVVY:

Just so; the steadfast faith of those who hold,
In foreign lands beyond the Eastern sea,
The shares in your concern-a simple, blind,
Unreasoning belief in dividends,
Still stimulated by assessments which,
When the skies fall, ensnaring all the larks,
Will bring, no doubt, a very great return.

ALL (_singing_):

O the beautiful assessment,
The exquisite assessment,
The regular assessment,
That makes the water flow.

RINGDIVVY:

The rascally-assessment!

FEEGOBBLE:

The murderous assessment!

NOZZLE:

The glorious assessment
That makes my mare to go!

FEEGOBBLE:

But, Nozzle, you, I think, were on the point
Of making a remark about some rights-
Some certain vested rights you have acquired
By long immunity; for still the law
Holds that if one do evil undisturbed
His right to do so ripens with the years;
And one may be a villain long enough
To make himself an honest gentleman.

ALL (_singing_):

Hail, holy law,
The soul with awe
Bows to thy dispensation.

NOZZLE:

It breaks my jaw!

RINGDIVVY:

It qualms my maw!

FEEGOBBLE:

It feeds my jaw,
It crams my maw,
It is my soul's salvation!

NOZZLE:

Why, yes, I've floated mountains to the sea
For lo! these many years; though some, they say,
Do strand themselves along the bottom lands
And cover up a village here and there,
And here and there a ranch. 'Tis said, indeed,
The granger with his female and his young
Do not infrequently go to the dickens
By premature burial in slickens.

ALL (_singing_):

Could slickens forever
Choke up the river,
And slime's endeavor
Be tried on grain,
How small the measure
Of granger's treasure,
How keen his pain!

RINGDIVVY:

'A consummation devoutly to be wished!'
These rascal grangers would long since have been
Submerged in slimes, to the last man of them,
But for the fact that all their wicked tribes
Affect our legislation with their bribes.

ALL (_singing_):

O bribery's great-
'Tis a pillar of State,
And the people they are free.

FEEGOBBLE:

It smashes my slate!

NOZZLE:

It is thievery straight!

RINGDIVVY:

But it's been the making of me!

NOZZLE:

I judge by certain shrewd sensations here
In these callosities I call my thumbs
thrilling sense as of ten thousand pins,
Red-hot and penetrant, transpiercing all
The cuticle and tickling through the nerves
That some malign and awful thing draws near.

(_Enter Hayseed._)

Good Lord! here are the ghosts and spooks of all
The grangers I have decently interred,
Rolled into one!

FEEGOBBLE:

Plead, phantom.

RINGDIVVY:

You've the floor.

HAYSEED:

From the margin of the river
(Bitter Creek, they sometimes call it)
Where I cherished once the pumpkin,
And the summer squash promoted,
Harvested the sweet potato,
Dallied with the fatal melon
And subdued the fierce cucumber,
I've been driven by the slickens,
Driven by the slimes and tailings!
All my family-my Polly
Ann and all my sons and daughters,
Dog and baby both included
All were swamped in seas of slickens,
Buried fifty fathoms under,
Where they lie, prepared to play their
Gentle prank on geologic
Gents that shall exhume them later,
In the dim and distant future,
Taking them for melancholy
Relics antedating Adam.
I alone got up and dusted.

NOZZLE:

Avaunt! you horrid and infernal cuss!
What dire distress have you prepared for us?

RINGDIVVY:

Were I a buzzard stooping from the sky
My craw with filth to fill,
Into your honorable body I
Would introduce a bill.

FEEGOBBLE:

Defendant, hence, or, by the gods, I'll brain thee!-
Unless you saved some turneps to retain me.

HAYSEED:

As I was saying, I got up and dusted,
My ranch a graveyard and my business busted!
But hearing that a fellow from the City,
Who calls himself a Citizens' Committee,
Was coming up to play the very dickens,
With those who cover up our farms with slickens,
And make himself-unless I am in error
To all such miscreants a holy terror,
I thought if I would join the dialogue
I maybe might get payment for my dog.

ALL (_Singing_):

O the dog is the head of Creation,
Prime work of the Master's hand;
He hasn't a known occupation,
Yet lives on the fat of the land.
Adipose, indolent, sleek and orbicular,
Sun-soaken, door matted, cross and particular,
Men, women, children, all coddle and wait on him,
Then, accidentally shutting the gate on him,
Miss from their calves, ever after, the rifted out
Mouthful of tendons that doggy has lifted out!
(_Enter Junket_.)

JUNKET:

Well met, my hearties! I must trouble you
Jointly and severally to provide
A comfortable carriage, with relays
Of hardy horses. This Committee means
To move in state about the country here.
I shall expect at every place I stop
Good beds, of course, and everything that's nice,
With bountiful repast of meat and wine.
For this Committee comes to sea and mark
And inwardly digest.

HAYSEED:

Digest my dog!

NOZZLE:

First square my claim for damages: the gold
Escaping with the slickens keeps me poor!

RINGDIVVY:

I merely would remark that if you'd grease
My itching palm it would more glibly glide
Into the public pocket.

FEEGOBBLE:

Sir, the wheels
Of justice move but slowly till they're oiled.
I have some certain writs and warrants here,
Prepared against your advent. You recall
The tale of Zaccheus, who did climb a tree,
And Jesus said: 'Come down'?

JUNKET:

Why, bless your souls!
I've got no money; I but came to see
What all this noisy babble is about,
Make a report and file the same away.

NOZZLE, RINGDIVVY, FEEGOBBLE, HAYSEED:

How'll that help _us_? Reports are not our style
Of provender!

JUNKET:

Well, you can gnaw the file.