{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/from-virginia-to-paris",
 "title": "From Virginia to Paris",
 "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": 54,
 "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": 21,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The polecat, sovereign of its native wood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dashes damnation upon bad and good;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The health of all the upas trees impairs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By exhalations deadlier than theirs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poisons the rattlesnake and warts the toad⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The creeks go rotten and the rocks corrode!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She shakes o’er breathless hill and shrinking dale",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The horrid aspergillus of her tail!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From every saturated hair, till dry,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The spargent fragrances divergent fly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stifle the world and reek along the sky!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Removed to alien scenes, amid the strife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of urban odors to ungladden life⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where gas and sewers and dead dogs conspire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The flesh to torture and the soul to fire⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where all the “well defined and several stinks”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Known to mankind hold revel and high jinks⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Humbled in spirit, smitten with a sense",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of lost distinction, leveled eminence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her powers atrophied, her vigor sunk,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She lives deodorized, a sweeter skunk.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}