{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/another-aspirant",
 "title": "Another Aspirant",
 "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": 18,
 "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "George Dewey, dear, I did not think that you⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So very married and so happy, too⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would go philandering with another girl",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And give your gay mustache a fetching curl",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And set your cap⁠—I should say your cocked hat⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At Miss Columbia the like o’ that.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pray what can you expect to get by throwing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sheep’s eyes at one so very, very knowing?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "See how she served McKinley! All his life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He wooed her for his morganatic wife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Swore that he loved her better than his soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(I’m half inclined to think, upon the whole,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She better did deserve his love) then vowed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He’d marry her alive, or even aloud!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What did she? Ere his breath he could recover",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She heartlessly accepted that poor lover!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There’s William Bryan of the silver tongue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old in ambition, in discretion young⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He courts her with the song, the dance, the lute,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But knows how suitors feel who do not suit.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Teddy Roosevelt, plucking from its sheath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The weapon that he wears behind his teeth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Endeavors in his simple, soldier fashion,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But all in vain, to touch her heart by slashin’.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Beware, my web-foot friend, beware her wiles:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fly from her sighs and disregard her smiles.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She’s no fool mermaid with a comb and glass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But Satan’s daughter with a breast of brass.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put out your prow to sea again⁠—but hold!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If Bryan and McKinley, all too bold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Show up along the beach with little Teddy⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Well, Dewey, you may fire when you are ready.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}