{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/at-a-national-encampment",
 "title": "At a “National Encampment”",
 "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": null,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "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": "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 46,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "You’re grayer than one would have thought you:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The climate you have over there",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In the East has apparently brought you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Disorders affecting the hair,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which⁠—pardon me⁠—seems a bit spare.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You’ll not take offence at my giving",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Expression to notions like these.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You might have been stronger if living",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out here in our sanative breeze.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s unhealthy here for disease.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No, I’m not as plump as a pullet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that’s the old wound, you see.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Remember my paunching a bullet?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how that it didn’t agree",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With⁠—well, honest hardtack for me.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Just pass me the wine⁠—I’ve a helly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And horrible kind of drouth!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When a fellow has that in his belly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which didn’t go in at his mouth",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He’s hotter than all Down South!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Great Scott! what a nasty day that was⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When every galoot in our crack",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Division who didn’t lie flat was",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dissuaded from further attack",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By the bullet’s felicitous whack.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Twas there that our major slept under",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some cannon of ours on the crest,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till they woke him by stilling their thunder,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he cursed them for breaking his rest,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And died in the midst of his jest.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That night⁠—it was late in November⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dead seemed uncommonly chill",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To the touch; and one chap I remember",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who took it exceedingly ill",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When I dragged myself over his bill.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Well, comrades, I’m off now⁠—good morning.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your talk is as pleasant as pie,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But, pardon me, one word of warning:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Speak little and seldom, say I.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That’s my way. God bless you. Good-bye.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}