{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/consolation",
 "title": "Consolation",
 "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": 69,
 "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": {
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  "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": 8,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
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  "longest_line_chars": 42,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Little’s the good to sit and grieve",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because the serpent tempted Eve.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Better to wipe your eyes and take",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A club and go out and kill a snake.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But if you prefer, as I suspect,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To philosophize, why, then, reflect:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If the cunning rascal upon the limb",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hadn’t tempted her she’d have tempted him.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}