{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/george-a-knight",
 "title": "George A. Knight",
 "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": 42,
 "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"
  ]
 },
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   "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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    "date": "2026-08-20"
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 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
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  "longest_line_chars": 51,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Attorney Knight, it happens so sometimes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That lawyers, justifying cut-throats’ crimes",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For hire⁠—calumniating, too, for gold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dead, dumb victims cruelly unsouled⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Speak, through the press, to a tribunal far",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "More honorable than their Honors are⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A court that sits not with assenting smile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While living rogues dead gentleman revile⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A court where scoundrel ethics of your trade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Confuse no judgment and no cheating aid⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Court of Honest Souls, where you in vain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May plead your right to falsify for gain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sternly reminded if a man engage",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To serve assassins for the liar’s wage,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His mouth with vilifying falsehoods crammed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He’s twice detestable and doubly damned!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Attorney Knight, defending Powell, you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To earn your fee, so energetic grew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(So like a hound, the pride of all the pack,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clapping your nose upon the dead man’s track",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To run his faults to earth⁠—at least proclaim",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At vacant holes the overtaken game)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That men who marked you nourishing the tongue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And saw your arms so vigorously swung,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All marveled how so light a breeze could stir",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So great a windmill to so great a whirr!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Little they knew, or surely they had grinned,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mill was laboring to raise the wind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ralph Smith a “shoulder-striker”! God, O hear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This hardy man’s description of thy dear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dead child, the gentlest soul, save only One,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "E’er born in any land beneath the sun.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All silent benefactions still he wrought:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "High deed and gracious speech and noble thought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kept all thy law, and, seeking still the right,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon his blameless breast received the light.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints,” one cried",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose wrath was deep as his comparison wide⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Milton, Thy servant. Nay, Thy will be done:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To smite or spare⁠—to me it all is one.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can vengeance bring my sorrow to an end,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or justice give me back my buried friend?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But if some Milton vainly now implore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Powell prosper as he did before,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet ’twere too much that, making no ado,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy saints be slaughtered and be slandered too.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So, Lord, make Knight his weapon keep in sheath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or do Thou wrest it from between his teeth!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}