{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-song-in-praise",
 "title": "A Song in Praise",
 "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": {
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  "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",
  "corrections": [
   {
    "line": 2,
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    "was": 0,
    "now": 2,
    "why": "Indentation absent from the source markup and measured from the scan: this line starts 7.0 character advances (~3.5 em) right of its own page's base margin, where the verse sets flush. Converted at 3.0 advances per indent level (tools/defects.py indent).",
    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
   }
  ]
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Hail, blessed Blunder! golden idol, hail!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clay-footed deity of all who fail.",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Celestial image, let thy glory shine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy feet concealing, but a lamp to mine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let me, at seasons opportune and fit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By turns adore thee and by turns commit.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In thy high service let me ever be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Yet never serve thee as my critics me)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Happy and fallible, content to feel",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I blunder chiefly when to thee I kneel.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But best felicity is his thy praise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who utters unaware in works and ways⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who laborare est orare proves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And feels thy suasion wheresoe’er he moves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Serving thy purpose, not thine altar, still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And working, for he thinks it his, thy will.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If such a life with blessings be not fraught,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I envy Peter Robertson for naught.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}