{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-vision-of-resurrection",
 "title": "A Vision of Resurrection",
 "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": 38,
 "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": [
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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"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 56,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 9
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I had a dream. The habitable earth⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its continents and islands⁠—all was bare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of cities and of forests. Naught remained",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of its old aspect, and I only knew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(As men know things in dreams, unknowing how)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That this was earth and that all men were dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On every side I saw the barren land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even to the distant sky’s inclosing blue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thick-pitted all with graves; and all the graves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save one were open⁠—not as newly dug,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But rather as by some internal force",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Riven for egress. Tombs of stone were split",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wide agape, and in their iron decay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The massive mausoleums stood in halves.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With mildewed linen all the ground was white.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Discarded shrouds upon memorial stones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hung without motion in the soulless air.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While greatly marveling how this should be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Low like an angel’s, delicately strong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sweet as music.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Spirit,” it said, “behold",
    "indent": 9
   },
   {
    "text": "The burial place of universal Man!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A million years have rolled away since here",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His sheeted multitudes (save only some",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose dark misdeeds required a separate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And individual arraigning) rose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To judgment at the trumpet’s summoning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And passed into the sky for their award,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaving behind these perishable things",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which yet, preserved by miracle, endure",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till all are up. Then they and all of earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rock-hearted mountain and storm-breasted sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "River and wilderness and sites of dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And vanished capitals of men, shall spring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To flame, and naught shall be forevermore!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When all are risen that wonder will occur.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas but ten centuries ago the last",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But one came forth⁠—a soul so black with sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against whose name so many crimes were set",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That only now his trial is at end.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But one remains.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Straight, as the voice was stilled⁠—",
    "indent": 8
   },
   {
    "text": "That single rounded mound cracked lengthliwise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And one came forth in grave-clothes. For a space",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He stood and gazed about him with a smile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Superior; then laying off his shroud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Disclosed his two attenuated legs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which, like parentheses, bent outwardly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As by the weight of saintliness above,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so sprang upward and was lost to view.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Noting his headstone overthrown, I read:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Sacred to memory of George K. Fitch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deacon and Editor⁠—a holy man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who fell asleep in Jesus, full of years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And blessedness. The dead in Christ rise first.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}