{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/censor-literarum",
 "title": "Censor Literarum",
 "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": 90,
 "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": 31,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "So, Parson Stebbins, you’ve released your chin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To say that here, and here, we press-folk ail.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis a great thing an editor to skin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hang his faulty pelt upon a nail",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "(If over-eared, it has, at least, no tail)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, for an admonition against sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Point out its maculations with a rod,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And act, in short, the gentleman of God.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Twere needless cruelty to spoil your sport",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By comment, critical or merely rude;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But you, too, have, according to report,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Despite your posing as a holy dude,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Imperfect spiritual pulchritude",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For so severe a judge. May’t please the court,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We shall appeal and take our case at once",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Before that higher court, a taller dunce.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sir, what were you without the press? What spreads",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fame of your existence, once a week,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From the Pacific Mail dock to the Heads,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Warning the people you’re about to wreak",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the human ear your Sunday freak?⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereat the most betake them to their beds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though some prefer to slumber in the pews",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nod assent to your hypnotic views.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Unhappy man! can you not still your tongue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When (like a luckless brat afflict with worms,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By cruel fleas intolerably stung,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or with a pang in its small lap) it squirms?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Still must it vulgarize your feats of lung?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There were no better preachering beneath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sun if you’d naught there behind your teeth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}