{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/arthur-mcewen",
 "title": "Arthur McEwen",
 "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": 28,
 "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": 12,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
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  "longest_line_chars": 42,
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Posterity with all its eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will come and view him where he lies.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then, turning from the scene away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a concerted shrug, will say:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“H’m, ‘Scarabaeus Sisyphus’⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What interest has that to us?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We can’t admire at all, at all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A tumble-bug without its ball.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then a sage will rise and say:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Good friends, you err⁠—turn back, I pray:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This freak that you unwisely shun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is bug and ball rolled into one.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}