{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/a-word-to-the-unwise",
 "title": "A Word to the Unwise",
 "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": 64,
 "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"
  ]
 },
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  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "black-beetles-in-amber.xhtml",
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   "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": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 12,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Charles Main, of Main & Winchester, attend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With friendly ear the chit-chat of a friend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who knows you not, yet knows that you and he",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Travel two roads that have a common end.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We journey forward through the time allowed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I humbly bending, you erect and proud.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our heads alike will stable soon the worm⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The one that’s lifted, and the one that’s bowed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You in your mausoleum shall repose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I where it pleases Him who sleep bestows;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What matter whether one so little worth",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall stain the marble or shall feed the rose?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Charles Main, I had a friend who died one day.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A metal casket held his honored clay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of cyclopean architecture stood",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The splendid vault where he was laid away.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A dozen years, and lo! the roots of grass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had burst asunder all the joints; the brass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gilded ornaments, the carven stones",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lay tumbled all together in a mass.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A dozen years! That taxes your belief.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make it a thousand if the time’s too brief.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twill be the same to you; when you are dead",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You cannot even count your days of grief.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Suppose a pompous monument you raise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till on its peak the solar splendor blaze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While yet about its base the night is black;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But will it give your glory length of days?",
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   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Say, when beneath your rubbish has been thrown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some rogue to reputation all unknown⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Men’s backs being turned⁠—should lift his thieving hand,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Efface your name and substitute his own,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Whose then would be the monument? To whom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would be the fame? Forgotten in your gloom⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your very name forgotten⁠—ah, my friend,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The name is all that’s rescued by the tomb.",
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   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For memory of worth and work we go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To other records than a stone can show.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These lacking, naught remains; with these",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The stone is needless for the world will know.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then build your mausoleum if you must,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And creep into it with a perfect trust;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But in the twinkling of an eye the plow",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall pass without obstruction through your dust.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Another movement of the pendulum,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, lo! the desert-haunting wolf shall come,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, seated on the spot, shall howl by night",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er rotting cities, desolate and dumb.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}