{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/avalon",
 "title": "Avalon",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "book_slug": "black-beetles-in-amber",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1892,
  "venue": "Black Beetles in Amber (1892)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier"
  ]
 },
 "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": 44,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I dreamed I was dreaming one morn as I lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a garden with flowers teeming⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "On an island I lay, in a mystical bay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the dream that I dreamed I was dreaming.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The ghost of a scent⁠—had it followed me there",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the place where I truly was resting?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The presence of roses attesting.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the place was all barren of roses⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That it only seemed; and the place, I deemed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was the Isle of Bedeviled Noses.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Full many a seaman had testified",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How all who sailed near were enchanted,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And landed to search (and in searching died)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the roses the Sirens had planted.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For the Sirens were dead, and the billows boomed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the stead of their singing forever;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though man had discovered them never.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I thought in my dream ’twas an idle tale,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A delusion that mariners cherished⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That the fragrance loading the conscious gale",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was the ghost of a garden long perished.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I said, “I will fly from this island of woes,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And acting on that decision,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By that odor of rose I was led by the nose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For ’twas truly, ah! truly, Elysian.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I ran, in my madness, to seek out the source",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the redolent river⁠—directed",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By some supernatural, sinister force",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To a forest, dark, haunted, infected.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And still as I threaded (’twas all in the dream",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I dreamed I was dreaming) each turning",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There were many a scream and a sudden gleam",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of eyes all uncannily burning!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The leaves were all wet with a horrible dew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That mirrored the red moon’s crescent,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And all shapes were fringed with a ghostly blue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dim, wavering, phosphorescent.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But the fragrance divine, coming strong and free,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Led me on in my resolute seeking,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till⁠—ah, joy!⁠—I could see, on the limbs of a tree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mine enemies hanging and reeking!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}