{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/from-the-minutes",
 "title": "From the Minutes",
 "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": 160,
 "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": 15,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 70,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When, with the force of a ram that discharges its ponderous body",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Straight at the rear elevation of the luckless culler of simples,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The foot of Herculean Kilgore⁠—statesman of surname suggestive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or carnage unspeakable!⁠—lit like a missile solid, prodigious",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the Congressional door with a monstrous and mighty momentum,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Causing that vain ineffective bar to political freedom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To fly from its hinges, effacing the nasal excrescence of Dingley,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That luckless one, decently veiling the ruin with ready bandana,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lamented the loss of his eminence, sadly with sobs as follows:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Ah, why was I ever elected to the halls of legislation,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So soon to be shown the door with pitiless emphasis? Truly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ve leaned on a broken Reed, and the same has gone back on me meanly.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where now is my prominence, erstwhile in council conspicuous, patent?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas, I did never before understand what I now see clearly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To wit, that Democracy tends to level all human distinctions!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}