{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/conservatism-and-progress",
 "title": "Conservatism and Progress",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Fiend’s Delight",
 "book_slug": "the-fiends-delight",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 4,
 "container": "Poesy",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1873,
  "venue": "The Fiend’s Delight (1873)",
  "note": "Taken from The Fiend's Delight (1873), Bierce's first book. Its preface says what the volume is: the pieces in it are “taken mainly from various Californian journals”. So 1873 is the first book printing located, not the poem's first appearance, and which newspaper printed it first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "poesy.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": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Old Zephyr, dawdling in the West,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looked down upon the sea,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which slept unfretted at his feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And balanced on its breast a fleet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That seemed almost to be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suspended in the middle air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if a magnet held it there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eternally at rest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then, one by one, the ships released",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their folded sails, and strove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against the empty calm to press",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "North, South, or West, or East,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In vain; the subtle nothingness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was impotent to move.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then Zephyr laughed aloud to see:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“No vessel moves except by me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, heigh⁠—ho! I shall sleep.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But lo! from out the troubled North",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A tempest strode impatient forth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And trampled white the deep;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sloping ships flew glad away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Laving their heated sides in spray.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The West then turned him red with wrath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to the North he shouted:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Hold there! How dare you cross my path,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As now you are about it?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The North replied with laboured breath⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His speed no moment slowing:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“My friend, you’ll never have a path,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unless you take to blowing.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}