{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-teagoing-admiral",
 "title": "A Teagoing Admiral",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-iv",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 6,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1910,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV (1910)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume IV of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1910). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface speaks of the verses republished in this volume and the next, and which newspaper or earlier book printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "shapes-of-clay.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": 44,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Once the Queen of Nether China",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(So benign a Messalina!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Said: “I’ll make a Naval Hero",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Without fear⁠—O brave as Nero!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He shall dominate the ocean",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By promotion, that’s my notion.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All my other sons of thunder",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then shall plunder vainly under",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This Incomparable Person,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Interspersin’ lively cursin’",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With their futile strife to shiver",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Every river-pirate’s liver,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to ascertain the measure",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of his treasure at their leisure.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I’ll so arrange the looting",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the shooting and the hooting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the making frightful faces",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(These grimaces are the bases",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of our tactics) that they never,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Howsoever brave and clever,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall have any kind of inning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the skinning now beginning.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I’ll see that in the story",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the gory game of glory",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The historian shall slight ’em",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or indict ’em⁠—maybe bite ’em.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the Hero of my making,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom I’m aching to be waking",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into visible existence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He shall distance these Philistines.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fame’s loud trumpet⁠—he shall hear it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Blown with spirit in his ear, it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall extol his birth and breeding,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His exceeding knack at leading",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a sanguinary sea fight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or a tea fight, or a flea fight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till he burst with admiration",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of his station in the nation!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then while all the people mock him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll unfrock him! That will shock him.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus the Queen of Nether China,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Regina Mun-Kee-Shina,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Made to Naval Evolution",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A Confucian contribution.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}