{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/contempt-of-court",
 "title": "Contempt of Court",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-v",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 60,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume V of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1911). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface states that most of its verses are republished from newspapers and periodicals of the Pacific Coast, and which of them printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "So, Juror Simpson, you got drunk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And was a holy show!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who could have thought that you had sunk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So very low",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As not to hold it clearly sinful",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To get your miserable skin full?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Defendant has a right, I think,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To trial by her peers;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Are you one when you are in drink",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up to your ears?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re not her equal by a pailful",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When you’ve enough to make a whale full.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Judge Ross, who never, never looks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On wine when it is red,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But sits cold sober cramming books",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into his head,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Poor fellow! must have felt quite rueful,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Observing, not himself, but you full.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, well, I know you did not mean⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas all an accident:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You drank between drinks, and between",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Them you repent.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But just prepare for something awful",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In words: That jurist has his jaw full.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}