{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/foundations-of-the-state",
 "title": "Foundations of the State",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
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 "language": "en",
 "book": "Shapes of Clay",
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  [
   {
    "text": "Observe, dear Lord, what lively pranks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are played by sentimental cranks!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "First this one mounts his hinder hoofs",
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   {
    "text": "And brays the chimneys off the roofs;",
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   {
    "text": "Then that one, with exalted voice,",
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   },
   {
    "text": "Expounds the thesis of his choice,",
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   },
   {
    "text": "Our understandings to bombard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till all the window panes are starred!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A third augments the vocal shock",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till steeples to their bases rock,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Confessing, as they humbly nod,",
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   },
   {
    "text": "They hear and mark the will of God.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A fourth in oral thunder vents",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His pinching penury of sense",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till dogs with sympathetic howls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lowing cows, and cackling fowls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hens, geese, and all domestic birds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Attest the terror of his words.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cranks thus their intellects deflate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of theories about the State.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This one avers ’tis built on Truth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that on Temperance. This youth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Declares that Science bears the pile;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That graybeard, with a holy smile,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Says Faith is the supporting stone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While women swear that Love alone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could so unflinchingly endure",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heavy load. And some are sure",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The solemn state of Christian Wedlock",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the indubitable bedrock.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Physicians once about the bed",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of one whose life was nearly sped",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Blew up a disputatious breeze",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "About the cause of his disease:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "This, that and t’other thing they blamed.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“Tut, tut!” the dying man exclaimed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“What made me ill I do not care;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ve not an ounce of it, I’ll swear.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And if you had the skill to make it",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I’d see you hanged before I’d take it!”",
    "indent": 1
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}