{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-challenge",
 "title": "A Challenge",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Shapes of Clay",
 "book_slug": "shapes-of-clay",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 114,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Shapes of Clay (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
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   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
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  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
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   {
    "text": "A bull imprisoned in a stall",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Broke boldly the confining wall,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And found himself, when out of bounds,",
    "indent": 1
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   {
    "text": "Within a washerwoman’s grounds.",
    "indent": 1
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   {
    "text": "Where, hanging on a line to dry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A crimson skirt inflamed his eye.",
    "indent": 0
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   {
    "text": "With bellowings that woke the dead,",
    "indent": 0
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   {
    "text": "He bent his formidable head,",
    "indent": 0
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    "text": "With pointed horns and knurly forehead;",
    "indent": 0
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    "text": "Then, planting firm his shoulders horrid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Began, with rage made half insane,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To paw the arid earth amain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flinging the dust upon his flanks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In desolating clouds and banks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The while his eyes’ uneasy white",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Betrayed his doubt what foe the bright",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Red tent concealed, perchance, from sight.",
    "indent": 0
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   {
    "text": "The garment, which, all undismayed,",
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   },
   {
    "text": "Had never paled a single shade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now found a tongue⁠—a dangling sock,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Left carelessly inside the smock:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I must insist, my gracious liege,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That you’ll be pleased to raise the siege:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My colors I will never strike.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know your sex⁠—you’re all alike.",
    "indent": 0
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   {
    "text": "Some small experience I’ve had⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re not the first I’ve driven mad.”",
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}