{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/an-offer-of-marriage",
 "title": "An Offer of Marriage",
 "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": 14,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "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": "shapes-of-clay.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": 46,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 66,
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  [
   {
    "text": "Once I “dipt into the future far as human eye could see,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And saw⁠—it was not Sandow, nor John Sullivan, but she⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Emancipated Woman, who was weeping as she ran",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here and there for the discovery of Expurgated Man.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the sun of Evolution ever rose and ever set,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that tardiest of mortals hadn’t evoluted yet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hence the tears that she cascaded, hence the sighs that tore apart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the tendinous connections of her indurated heart.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cried Emancipated Woman, as she wearied of the search:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“In Advancing I have left myself distinctly in the lurch!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seeking still a worthy partner, from the land of brutes and dudes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have penetrated rashly into manless solitudes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now without a mate of any kind where am I?⁠—that’s to say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where shall I be to-morrow?⁠—where exert my rightful sway",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the purifying strength of my emancipated mind?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can solitude be lifted up, vacuity refined?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Calling, calling from the shadows in the rear of my Advance⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the Region of Unprogress in the Dark Domain of Chance⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Long I heard the Unevolvable beseeching my return",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To share the degradation he’s reluctant to unlearn.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I’ve held my way regardless, evoluting year by year",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till I’m what you now behold me⁠—or would if you were here⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A condensed Emancipation and a Purifier proud",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An Independent Entity appropriately loud!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Independent? Yes, in spirit, but (O, woeful, woeful state!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doomed to premature extinction by privation of a mate⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To extinction or reversion, for Unexpurgated Man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still awaits me in the backward if I sicken of the van.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O the horrible dilemma!⁠—to be odiously linked",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With an Undeveloped Species, or become a Type Extinct!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As Emancipated Woman wailed her sorrow to the air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stalking out of desolation came a being strange and rare⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Plato’s Man!⁠—a biped, featherless from mandible to rump,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its wings two quilless flippers and its tail a plumeless stump.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "First it scratched and then it clucked, as if in hospitable terms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It invited her to banquet on imaginary worms.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then it strutted up before her with a lifting of the head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in accents of affection and of sympathy it said:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“My estate is some’at ’umble, but I’m qualified to draw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Near the hymeneal altar and whack up my heart and claw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To Emancipated Anything as walks upon the earth;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And them things is at your service for whatever they are worth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’m sure to be congenial, marm, nor e’er deserve a scowl⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’m Emancipated Rooster, I am Expurgated Fowl!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From the future and its wonders I withdrew my gaze, and then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wrote this wild, unfestive lay of Evolutionated Hen.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}