{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-mystery",
 "title": "A Mystery",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poetry",
 "book_slug": null,
 "book_kind": "compilation",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Uncollected Verse",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1867,
  "venue": "The Californian (San Francisco), vol. VII no. 27, 23 November 1867",
  "note": "Printed over the standing line “[For the Californian.]”, which is how that paper marked matter written for it. Read from the bound volume VII scanned as archive.org/details/cali07webb; no earlier printing has been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/cali07webb"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "uncollected-verse.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": 35,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "A thing to be thought with abated breath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And named with tears.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There ever shall be as there ever have been,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond our ken,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The weight of the Past with its burden of sin,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A shadow thrown from the Future within,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "On the souls of men.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the weight unfelt and the shadow unseen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the cry of the Present unheard between,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is all of life.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And ’tis only through toil and the nameless pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of wishes forever unwished again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By an aimless strife⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As who should do battle with weapon of steel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the fleshless Dark which he cannot feel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As it hedges him round⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That peace is found.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thinkst thou that “to smile” is the same as “to live,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That a life shall receive what it need not give,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That toil is toil;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That a fruitful future unmoistened by tears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Brings harvest of ears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wine and oil?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O, Dreamer of Dreams, there forever shall be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A blossomless growth in the spirit of thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still draping in gloom.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Each fairy façade of each castle so fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By thy fancy upreared in the roseate air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As ivy a tomb.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis rooted in life and its fruit is of death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the prisoned breath,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In its baleful shadow, still shudders and moans",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In voiceless tones.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Wouldst thou know, O mortal, the secret of Pain?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis the payment in blood for each wish we obtain.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}