{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-false-alarm",
 "title": "A False Alarm",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-iv",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 31,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1910,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV (1910)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume IV of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1910). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface speaks of the verses republished in this volume and the next, and which newspaper or earlier book printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "shapes-of-clay.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": 12,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When Gertrude Atherton pronounced the ladies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of fair Manhattan hideous as Hades⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In eyes no splendor, and in cheeks no roses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, O ye godlings! rudimentary noses⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To pass a bad half-hour before their glasses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Straight to their dressing-rooms ran dames and lasses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who, still dissenting from her curst appraisal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grew more pugnacious, but not less pugnasal.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ladies, be calm: there’s nothing to distress you⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Sacred Englishman will rise and bless you.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No noses⁠—none to speak of⁠—is alarming,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that you can’t speak through them⁠—that is charming!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}