{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-political-violet",
 "title": "A Political Violet",
 "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": null,
 "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": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "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": 44,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Come, Stanford, let us sit at ease",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And talk as old friends do.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You talk of anything you please,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I will talk of you.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You recently have said, I hear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That you would like to go",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To serve as Senator. That’s queer!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you told William Stow?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Once when the Legislature said:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Go, Stanford, and be great!”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You lifted up your Jovian head",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And overlooked the State.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As one made leisurely awake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You lightly rubbed your eyes",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And answered: “Thank you⁠—please to make",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A note of my surprise.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“But who are they who skulk aside,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As to get out of reach,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And in their clothing strive to hide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Three thousand dollars each?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Not members of your body, sure?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No, that can hardly be:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All statesmen, I suppose, are pure.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What! there are rogues? Dear me!”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You added, you’ll recall, that though",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You were surprised and pained,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You thought, upon the whole, you’d go,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in that mind remained.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now, what so great a change has wrought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That you so frankly speak",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of “seeking” honors once unsought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because you “scorned to seek”?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Do you not fear the grave reproof",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In good Creed Haymond’s eye?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Will Stephen Gage not stand aloof",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And pass you coldly by?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O, fear you not that Vrooman’s lich",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will rise from earth and point",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "At you a scornful finger which",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May lack, perchance, a joint?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Go, Stanford, where the violets grow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And join their modest train.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Await the work of William Stow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be surprised again.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}