{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/expositor-veritatis",
 "title": "Expositor Veritatis",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "book_slug": "black-beetles-in-amber",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 41,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1892,
  "venue": "Black Beetles in Amber (1892)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier"
  ]
 },
 "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": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I slept, and, waking in the years to be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heard voices, and approaching whence they came,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Listened indifferently where a key",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had lately been removed. An ancient dame",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Said to her daughter: “Go to yonder caddy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And get some emery to scour your daddy.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And then I knew⁠—some intuition said⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That tombs were not and men had cleared their shelves",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of urns; and the electro-plated dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stood pedestaled as statues of themselves.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With famous dead men all the public places",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were thronged, and some in piles awaited bases.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One mighty structure’s high façade alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Contained a single monumental niche,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where, central in that steep expanse of stone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gleamed the familiar form of Thomas Fitch.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A man cried: “Lo! Truth’s temple and its founder!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then gravely added: “I’m her chief expounder.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}