{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/at-the-close-of-the-canvass",
 "title": "At the Close of the Canvass",
 "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": 2,
 "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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 74,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "’Twas a Venerable Person, whom I met one Sunday morning,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All appareled as a prophet of a melancholy sect;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And in a Jeremaid of objurgatory warning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He lifted up his jodel to the following effect:",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“O ye sanguinary statesmen, intermit your verbal tussles!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O ye editors and orators, consent to hear my lay!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Rest a little while the digital and maxillary muscles",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And attend to what a Venerable Person has to say.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Cease your writing, cease your shouting, cease your wild unearthly lying;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cease to bandy such expressions as are never, never found",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In the letter of a lover; cease “exposing” and “replying”⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let there be abated fury and a decrement of sound.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For to-morrow will be Monday and the fifth day of November⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only day of opportunity before the final rush.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Carpe diem! go conciliate each person who’s a member",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the other party⁠—do it while you can without a blush.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Lo! the time is close upon you when the madness of the season",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Having howled itself to silence, like a Minnesota ’clone,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Will at last be superseded by the still, small voice of reason,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the whelpage of your folly you would willingly disown.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Ah, ’tis mournful to consider what remorses will be thronging,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a consciousness of having been so ghastly indiscreet,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When by accident untoward two ex-gentlemen belonging",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the opposite political denominations meet!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Yes, ’tis melancholy, truly, to forecast the fierce, unruly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Supersurging of their blushes, like the flushes upon high",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When Aurora Borealis lights her circumpolar palace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in customary manner sets her banner in the sky.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Each will think: ‘This falsifier knows that I too am a liar.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Curse him for a son of Satan, all unholily compound!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Curse my leader for another! Curse that pelican, my mother!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would to God that I when little in my victual had been drowned!’ ”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then that venerable warner disappeared around a corner",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the season of unreason having also taken flight,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All the cheeks of men were burning like the skies to crimson turning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Aurora Borealis fires her premises by night.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}