{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/an-unreformable-reformer",
 "title": "An Unreformable Reformer",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-iv",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 14,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1910,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV (1910)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume IV of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1910). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface speaks of the verses republished in this volume and the next, and which newspaper or earlier book printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 50,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I know not how they come about⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These alterations in our spelling,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But sometimes am disposed to doubt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The efficacy of compelling",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "(As still is done to one in school",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By threatening to whack or twist him)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Observance of an iron rule",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Despite one’s better private system.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For when the sinner’s freed from fear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He spells, as formerly, by ear.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That’s what I have observed, but much",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By that, I fear, is not decided",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Against the iron hand (whose touch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May none experience, as I did)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For under this White House regime",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Condemning every silent letter,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "This is the motto, it would seem:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Who spells by ear spells all the better.”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If that is what these pranks entail,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Executive Compulsion, hail!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "God grant I know not envy nor,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When chatting over cup and saucer,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Betray my secret hunger for",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The high renown of Geoffrey Chaucer.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet now at last I seem to see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My way to equal approbation:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When I’m as hard to read as he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Phonetes of that far generation",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Will study me and say: “How grand!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So difficult to understand!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The President, the President!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How enterprising in revision",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Nature’s laws!⁠—how diligent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In cutting out a court decision!⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "How sedulous the stars to woo",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And keep the seasons rightly going!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah, seldom we remember who",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Establishes the time of sowing",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And reaping, makes the harvest good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a great man of Leonard Wood.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This world is variously bad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And mad as hares in January",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "(’Tis later that the hares are mad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But similes and seasons vary)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And Presidents have much to do",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To keep the March of Mind a-walking,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To level up the birth rate, to",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pain William Chandler⁠—all by talking.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O Father Adam, how you must",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rejoice that both your ears are dust!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}