{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/four-of-a-kind",
 "title": "Four of a Kind",
 "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": 70,
 "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": {
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  "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",
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 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 45,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
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  "longest_line_chars": 47,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Dear man! although a stranger and a foe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To soft affection’s humanizing glow;",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Although untaught how manly hearts may throb",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With more desires than the desire to rob;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Although as void of tenderness as wit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And owning nothing soft but Maurice Schmitt;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Although polluted, shunned and in disgrace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You fill me with a passion to embrace!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Attentive to your look, your smile, your beck,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I watch and wait to fall upon your neck.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lord of my love, and idol of my hope,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You are my Valentine, and I’m",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A Rope.",
    "indent": 9
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Illustrious son of an illustrious sire⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Entrusted with the duty to cry “Fire!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And call the engines out, exert your power",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With care. When, looking from your lofty tower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You see a ruddy light on every wall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pause for a moment ere you sound the call:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It may be from a fire, it may be, too,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From good men’s blushes when they think of you.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Sultan of Stupids! with enough of brains",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To go indoors in all uncommon rains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not enough to stay there when the storm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is past. When all the world is dry and warm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In irking comfort, lamentably gay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Keeping the evil tenor of your way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You walk abroad, sweet, beautiful and smug,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Justice hears you with her wonted shrug,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lifts her broad bandage half-an-inch and keeps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One eye upon you while the other weeps.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Happy the man who sin’s proverbial wage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Receives on the instalment plan⁠—in age.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For him the bulldog pistol’s honest bark",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has naught of terror in its blunt remark.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He looks with calmness on the gleaming steel⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If e’er it touched his heart he did not feel:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Superior hardness turned its point away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though urged by fond affinity to stay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His bloodless veins ignored the futile stroke,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And moral mildew kept the cut in cloak.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Happy the man, I say, to whom the wage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of sin has been commuted into age.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet not quite happy⁠—hark, that horrid cry!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His cruel mirror wounds him in the eye!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}