{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-poets-father",
 "title": "A Poet’s Father",
 "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": 19,
 "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"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "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",
  "corrections": [
   {
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    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
   }
  ]
 },
 "stats": {
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  "n_stanzas": 1,
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  "longest_line_chars": 53,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Welcker, I’m told, can boast a father great",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And honored in the service of the State.",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Public Instruction all his mind employs⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He guides its methods and its wage enjoys.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Prime Pedagogue, imperious and grand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He waves his ferule o’er a studious land",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where humming youths, intent upon the page,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thirsting for knowledge with a noble rage,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drink dry the whole Pierian spring and ask",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To slake their fervor at his private flask.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Arrested by the terror of his frown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The vaulting spit-ball drops untimely down;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fly impaled on the tormenting pin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stills in his awful glance its dizzy din;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beneath that stern regard the chewing-gum",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which writhed and squeaked between the teeth is dumb;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Obedient to his will the dunce-cap flies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To perch upon the brows of the unwise;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The supple switch forsakes the parent wood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To settle where ’twill do the greatest good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Puissant still, as when of old it strove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With Solomon for spitting on the stove.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Learned Professor, variously great,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Guide, guardian, instructor of the State⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quick to discern and zealous to correct",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The faults which mar the public intellect",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From where of Siskiyou the northern bound",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is frozen eternal to the sunless ground",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To where in San Diego’s torrid clime",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The swarthy Greaser swelters in his grime⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beneath your stupid nose can you not see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dunce whom once you dandled on your knee?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O mighty master of a thousand schools,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stop teaching wisdom, or stop breeding fools.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}