{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-vision-of-doom",
 "title": "A Vision of Doom",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Shapes of Clay",
 "book_slug": "shapes-of-clay",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 6,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "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": "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": 85,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 3
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I stood upon a hill. The setting sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was crimson with a curse and a portent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And scarce his angry ray lit up the land",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That lay below, whose lurid gloom appeared",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Freaked with a moving mist, which, reeking up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From dim tarns hateful with some horrid ban,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Took shapes forbidden and without a name.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gigantic night-birds, rising from the reeds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With cries discordant, startled all the air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bodiless voices babbled in the gloom⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ghosts of blasphemies long ages stilled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And shrieks of women, and men’s curses. All",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These visible shapes, and sounds no mortal ear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had ever heard, some spiritual sense",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Interpreted, though brokenly; for I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was haunted by a consciousness of crime,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some giant guilt, but whose I knew not. All",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These things malign, by sight and sound revealed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were sin-begotten; that I knew⁠—no more⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that but dimly, as in dreadful dreams",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sleepy senses babble to the brain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Imperfect witness. As I stood, a voice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But whence it came I knew not, cried aloud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some words to me in a forgotten tongue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet straight I knew me for a ghost forlorn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Returned from the illimited inane.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Again, but in a language that I knew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As in reply to something which in me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had shaped itself a thought, but found no words,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It spake from the dread mystery about:",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Immortal shadow of a mortal soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That perished with eternity, attend.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What thou beholdest is as void as thou:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shadow of a poet’s dream⁠—himself",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As thou, his soul as thine, long dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not like thine outlasted by its shade.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His dreams alone survive eternity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As pictures in the unsubstantial void.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Excepting thee and me (and we because",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The poet wove us in his thought) remains",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of nature and the universe no part",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor vestige but the poet’s dreams. This dread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unspeakable land about thy feet, with all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its desolation and its terrors⁠—lo!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis but a phantom world. So long ago",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That God and all the angels since have died",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That poet lived⁠—yourself long dead⁠—his mind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Filled with the light of a prophetic fire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And standing by the Western sea, above",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The youngest, fairest city in the world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Named in another tongue than his for one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ensainted, saw its populous domain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Plague-smitten with a nameless shame. For there",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Red-handed murder rioted; and there",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The people gathered gold, nor cared to loose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The assassin’s fingers from the victim’s throat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But said, each in his vile pursuit engrossed:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "‘Am I my brother’s keeper? Let the Law",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Look to the matter.’ But the Law did not.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And there, O pitiful! the babe was slain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within its mother’s breast and the same grave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Held babe and mother; and the people smiled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still gathering gold, and said: ‘The Law, the Law.’",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then the great poet, touched upon the lips",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a live coal from Truth’s high altar, raised",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His arms to heaven and sang a song of doom⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sang of the time to be, when God should lean",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Indignant from the Throne and lift His hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that foul city be no more!⁠—a tale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A dream, a desolation and a curse!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No vestige of its glory should survive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In fact or memory: its people dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its site forgotten, and its very name",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Disputed.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Was the prophecy fulfilled?”",
    "indent": 3
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The sullen disc of the declining sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was crimson with a curse and a portent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And scarce his angry ray lit up the land",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Freaked with a moving mist, which, reeking up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From dim tarns hateful with a horrid ban,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Took shapes forbidden and without a name.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bodiless voices babbled in the gloom.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not to me came any voice again;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, covering my face with thin, dead hands,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I wept, and woke, and cried aloud to God!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}