{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-mine-for-reformers",
 "title": "A Mine for Reformers",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-v",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 32,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume V of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1911). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface states that most of its verses are republished from newspapers and periodicals of the Pacific Coast, and which of them printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When God resolved to make the world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He gathered all the matter",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In Chaos that was mixed and whirled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In unassorted scatter.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He separated that from this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And tagged on each a label,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Naming all kinds of substances",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As far as he was able.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He lacked of learning, though, enough",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To execute his aim, for",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There still remained a lot of stuff",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He hadn’t any name for.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And this (the world completed) lies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Without concatenation⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All unassorted⁠—and supplies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ideals for all Creation.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}