{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-soaring-toad",
 "title": "A Soaring Toad",
 "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": 52,
 "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": [
   "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 47,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "So, Waterman, you would not serve again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Although we’d all agree to pay you double.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You find it all is vanity and pain⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One clump of clover in a field of stubble⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "One grain of pleasure in a peck of trouble.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis sad, at your age, having to complain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of disillusion; but the fault is whose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When pigmies stumble, wearing giants’ shoes?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I humbly told you many moons ago",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For high preferment you were all unfit.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A clumsy bear makes but a sorry show",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Climbing a pole. Let him, judicious, sit",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With dignity at bottom of his pit,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And none his awkwardness will ever know.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some beasts look better, and feel better, too,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seen from above; and so, I think, would you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Why, you were mad! Did you suppose because",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our foolish system suffers foolish men",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To climb to power, make, enforce the laws,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, it is whispered, break them now and then,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We love the fellows and respect them when",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We’ve stilled the volume of our loud hurrahs?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When folly blooms we trample it the more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For having cultivated it before.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Behold yon laborer! His garb is mean,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His face is grimy, but who thinks to ask",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The measure of his brains? ’Tis only seen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He’s fitted for his honorable task,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And so delights the mind. But let him bask",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In droll prosperity, absurdly clean⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is that the man whom we admired before?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Good Lord, how ignorant, and what a bore!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Better for you that thoughtless men had said",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Noting your fitness in the humbler sphere):",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“Why don’t they make him Governor?” instead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of, “Why the devil did they?” But I fear",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My words on your inhospitable ear",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Are wasted like a sermon to the dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still, they may profit you if studied well:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You can’t be taught to think, but may to spell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}