{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-king-of-craft",
 "title": "A King of Craft",
 "ordinal": "II",
 "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": 34,
 "container": "On Stone Some Ante-Mortem Epitaphs",
 "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": "on-stone.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": 42,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Here lies Sam Chamberlain; his fatal smile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Survives its wielder for a little while",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In nightmares of the prudent few who fled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Judas kisses that it heralded⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those all are dreamless who stood still to view",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The smile that stayed them for the stab that slew.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against his God his warfare now is o’er:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His bloodless heart (no colder than before)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No longer with a mute ambition swells",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To run a half-a-hundred little Hells.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With ever a polite, perfidious art⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A dove in manner and a snake in heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This titmouse Machiavelli ne’er again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will feel the urge, the passion and the strain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To prove it true that one may smile and smile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be a Chamberlain the blessed while.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sharp at both ends, his secret soul",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Was like a double-headed mole",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Equipped with equal nose to prod",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "This way or that beneath the sod.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Conjecture fitted to confound",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If seen a moment out of ground⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Its former, as its future, route",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The matter of a vain dispute,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Save where a dunghill’s lure supplied",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Its aid the riddle to decide.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When that occurred (his nearer nose",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Pointing the way with happier throes)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He sought it as a bee the rose.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And as that robber daubs its thighs",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With pollen till it cannot rise,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So he, with glutted mind, remained",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Inert, and Christ arose and reigned.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We raise the stone, we carve the solemn word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sign of promise and the symbol grim;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His voice and vice are in the land unheard⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet all is doubtful that relates to him.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No more he twirls his smile to work us woe;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We saw him put a fathom under sod:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Flung down at last⁠—but so was Aaron’s rod.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We hope he’s dead, but only this we know:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He does not smile. O glory be to God!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}