{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/election-day",
 "title": "Election Day",
 "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": 136,
 "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": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "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": 34,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 44,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Despots effete upon tottering thrones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unsteadily poised upon dead men’s bones,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Walk up! walk up! the circus is free,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And this wonderful spectacle you shall see:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Millions of voters who mostly are fools,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Demagogues’ dupes and candidates’ tools⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Armies of uniformed mountebanks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And braying disciples of brainless cranks.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many a week they’ve bellowed like beeves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bitterly blackguarding, lying like thieves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Libeling freely the quick and the dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And painting the New Jerusalem red.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tyrants monarchical⁠—emperors, kings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Princes and nobles and all such things⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Noblemen, gentlemen, step this way:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There’s nothing, the Devil excepted, to pay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the freaks and curios here to be seen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are very uncommonly grand and serene.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No more with vivacity they debate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor cheerfully crack the dissenting pate;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No longer, the dull understanding to aid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The stomach accepts the instructive blade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor the stubborn heart learns what is what",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From a revelation of rabbit-shot;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And vilification’s flames⁠—behold!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Burn with a bickering faint and cold.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Magnificent spectacle!⁠—every tongue",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suddenly civil that yesterday rung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Like a clapper beating a brazen bell)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each fair reputation’s eternal knell;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hands no longer delivering blows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And noses, for counting, arrayed in rows.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Walk up, gentlemen⁠—nothing to pay⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Devil goes back to Hell to-day.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}