{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-trencher-knight",
 "title": "A Trencher-Knight",
 "ordinal": "X",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Shapes of Clay",
 "book_slug": "shapes-of-clay",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "On Stone Some Ante-Mortem Epitaphs",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Shapes of Clay (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "on-stone.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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Stranger, uncover; here you have in view",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The monument of Chauncey M. Depew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eater and orator, the whole world round",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For feats of tongue and tooth alike renowned.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dining his way to eminence, he rowed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With knife and fork up water-ways that flowed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From lakes of favor⁠—pulled with all his force",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And found each river sweeter than the source.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Like rats, obscure beneath a kitchen floor,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gnawing and rising till obscure no more,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He ate his way to eminence, and Fame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Inscribes in gravy his immortal name.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A trencher-knight, he, mounted on his belly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So spurred his charger that its sides were jelly.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grown desperate at last, it reared and threw him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Indigestion, overtaking, slew him.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}