{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/bats-in-sunshine",
 "title": "Bats in Sunshine",
 "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": 63,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Well, Mr. Kemble, you are called, I think,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A great divine, and I’m a great profane.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You as a Congregationalist blink",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some certain truths that I esteem a gain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And drop them in the coffers of my brain,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Pleased with the pretty music of their chink.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps your spiritual wealth is such",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A golden truth or two don’t count for much.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You say that you’ve no patience with such stuff",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As by Rénan is writ, and when you read",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "(Why do you read?) have hardly strength enough",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To hold your hand from flinging the vile screed",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the fire. That were a wasteful deed",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which you’d repent in sackcloth extra rough;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For books cost money, and I’m told you care",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To lay up treasures Here as well as There.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I fear, good, pious soul, that you mistake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your thrift for toleration. Never mind:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Rénan in any case would hardly break",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His great, strong, charitable heart to find",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The bats and owls of your myopic kind",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Pained by the light that his ideas make.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis Truth’s best purpose to shine in at holes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where cower the Kembles, to confound their souls!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}