{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/elixir-vitae",
 "title": "Elixir Vitae",
 "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": null,
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Of life’s elixir I had writ, when sleep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Pray Heaven it spared him who the writing read!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sealed upon my senses with so deep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A stupefaction that men thought me dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The centuries stole by with noiseless tread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like spectres in the twilight of my dream;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw mankind in dim procession sweep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through life, oblivion at each extreme.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Meanwhile my beard, like Barbarossa’s growing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loaded my lap and o’er my knees was flowing.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The generations came with dance and song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And each observed me curiously there.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some asked: “Who was he?” Others in the throng",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Replied: “A wicked monk who slept at prayer.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some said I was a saint, and some a bear⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These all were women. So the young and gay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Visibly wrinkling as they fared along,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Doddered at last on failing limbs away;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though some, their footing in my beard entangled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fell into its abysses and were strangled.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "At last a generation came that walked",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More slowly forward to the common tomb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then altogether stopped. The women talked",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Excitedly; the men, with eyes agloom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looked darkly on them with a look of doom;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And one cried out: “We are immortal now⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How need we these?” And a dread figure stalked,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent, with gleaming axe and shrouded brow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all men cried: “Decapitate the women,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or soon there’ll be no room to stand or swim in!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So (in my dream) each lovely head was chopped",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From its fair shoulders, and but men alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were left in all the world. Birth being stopped,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enough of room remained in every zone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Peace ascended Woman’s vacant throne.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus, life’s elixir being found (the quacks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their bread-and-butter in it gladly sopped)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas made worth having by the headsman’s axe.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seeing which, I gave myself a hearty shaking,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And crumbled all to powder in the waking.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}