{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-merciful-governor",
 "title": "A Merciful Governor",
 "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": 50,
 "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"
  ]
 },
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  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "black-beetles-in-amber.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Standing within the triple wall of Hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And flattening his nose against a grate",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Behind whose brazen bars he’d had to dwell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A thousand million ages to that date,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Stoneman bewailed his melancholy fate,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And his big tear-drops, boiling as they fell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had worn between his feet, the record mentions,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A deep depression in the “good intentions.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Imperfectly by memory taught how⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For prayer in Hell is a lost art⁠—he prayed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Uplifting his incinerated brow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And flaming hands in supplication’s aid.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“O grant,” he cried, “my torment may be stayed⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In mercy, some short breathing spell allow!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If one good deed I did before my ghosting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spare me and give Delmas a double roasting.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Breathing a holy harmony in Hell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down through the appalling clamors of the place,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Charming them all to willing concord, fell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A Voice ineffable and full of grace:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“Because of all the law-defying race",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "One single malefactor of the cell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou didst deny a pardon, thy petition",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gains thee ten thousand years of intermission.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Back from their fastenings began to shoot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rusted bolts; with dreadful roar, the gate",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Laboriously turned; and, black with soot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The extinguished spirit passed that awful strait,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And as he legged it into space, elate,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Muttered: “Yes, I remember that galoot⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d signed his pardon, ready to allot it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But stuck it in my desk and quite forgot it.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}