{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/an-emigrant",
 "title": "An Emigrant",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-v",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 59,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume V of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1911). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface states that most of its verses are republished from newspapers and periodicals of the Pacific Coast, and which of them printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "You ask me why, though ill at ease,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within this region I subsist,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where all defaulters fill the fist",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ere sailing o’er the western seas.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It is a land where one may kill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With sober-sided freedom⁠—bruise",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And shoot and stab whome’er he choose,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And thugs may wreak their own sweet will.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A land of such misgovernment",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That Justice here has not a frown,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And greed still broadens slowly down,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From Scavenger to President;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where Faction gathers to a head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in his greasy, foulest thought",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Sets law and order all at naught⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Goes in for anarchy instead.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If banded unions prosecute",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our unions like the deuce, and I’m",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "About to be had up for crime,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Or made to keep my clapper mute;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And Power should take from purse and till,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gains that I appropriate",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From every coffer of the State,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I to fight have not the will,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then waft me from the harbor south,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wild winds! I seek a safer sky,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where I can plunder still, and I",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Can still shoot off my loaded mouth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}