{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-crocodile",
 "title": "A Crocodile",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "book_slug": "black-beetles-in-amber",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 76,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1892,
  "venue": "Black Beetles in Amber (1892)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "black-beetles-in-amber.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12977",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof08bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
   "https://archive.org/details/literarycalifor05mighgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Nay, Peter Robertson, ’tis not for you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To blubber o’er Max Taubles for he’s dead.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By Heaven! my hearty, if you only knew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How better is a grave-worm in the head",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Than brains like yours⁠—how far more decent, too,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A tomb in far Korea than a bed",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where Peter lies with Peter, you would covet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His happier state and, dying, learn to love it.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In the recesses of the silent tomb",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No Maunderings of yours disturb the peace.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Your mental bag-pipe, droning like the gloom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Hades audible, perforce must cease",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From troubling further; and that crack o’ doom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your mouth, shaped like a long bow, shall release",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In vain such shafts of wit as it can utter⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ear of death can’t even hear them flutter.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}