{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-prediction",
 "title": "A Prediction",
 "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": 11,
 "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": [
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  ]
 },
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12658",
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15599",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich",
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   "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)"
 },
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 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When the skies are green with clover,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the cows are flying over;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the roses lose their fragrance;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the ants are shiftless vagrants;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the peacocks pluck their tails,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the lion pares his nails;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When old ocean’s roaring ridges",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Roll beneath iridium bridges;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When diseases and physicians",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quarrel; when the politicians",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Go to work; when lawyers never",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fib no more again forever;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When we gather ice to burn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to eggs potatoes turn;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the pie-distended sleeper",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the nightmare keeps his peeper.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quick to round her up and mount her,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Field and Terry will “encounter.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When the whales, in battle order,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "March across our northern border;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the serpent of the sea",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is no longer known to be;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the cats intone in Latin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the lady ape wears satin;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the vulture, Mortgage, perches",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nevermore upon the churches;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the sycophant despises",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Arts by which the bird-louse rises",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Comfortably to the sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the smithy-haunting fly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sitting on the swelling bellows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is no prouder than his fellows;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the mocking-bird eschews",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All of his assenting views.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor proclaims them out of season;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the poets learn to reason;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When lieutenants damn the bullets",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Penetrating captains’ gullets,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a major feels the pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of his colonel’s shattered brain;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "When the best of human creatures",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the most austere of preachers,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "And the woman who’s demurest",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the truest and the purest;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "When the Mississippi, yearning",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "For its native hills and turning",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Deftly backward in its bed,",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Lays its mouth against its head;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "When the turtle-doves are cruel⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Field and Terry’ll fight a duel.",
    "indent": 2
   }
  ]
 ]
}