Ambrose Bierce Poems

In contact, lo! the flint and steel,
By sharp and flame, the thought reveal
That he the metal, she the stone,
Had cherished secretly alone.
...

Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be--
Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,
With a record of unreason seldome paralleled on earth.
...

Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,
Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;
On every wind, indeed, that blows
I hear her yell.
...

A conqueror as provident as brave,
He robbed the cradle to supply the grave.
...

Thou shalt no God but me adore:
'Twere too expensive to have more.
...

Of life's elixir I had writ, when sleep
(Pray Heaven it spared him who the writing read!)
Settled upon my senses with so deep
...

I lay in silence, dead. A woman came
And laid a rose upon my breast, and said,
'May God be merciful.' She spoke my name,
...

The cur foretells the knell of parting day;
The loafing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;
...

Megaceph, chosen to serve the State
In the halls of legislative debate,
One day with his credentials came
...

Day of Satan's painful duty! Dies iræ! dies illa!
Earth shall vanish, hot and sooty; Solvet sæclum in favilla
...