{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/in-cuba",
 "title": "In Cuba",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-iv",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 11,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1910,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV (1910)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume IV of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1910). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface speaks of the verses republished in this volume and the next, and which newspaper or earlier book printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 56,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 35,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Our Administration",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had made a new nation⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As new as a nation could be.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A raven was flapping",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Above it and snapping",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His beak with a manifest glee.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“O raven, what is it you see",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That causes the manifest glee?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“You can’t be designing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A programme of dining",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On anything living and free.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re famous for dinners",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That plain-speaking sinners",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Condemn with the Terrible D!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "(The word is abhorrent to me",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That begins with the Terrible D.)",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Come down from your airy",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Position and tarry",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Awhile on this coconut tree,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And tell me what joying",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You find in annoying",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A nation so young and so free⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Not dead in the slightest degree,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But lively and healthy as we.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The raven, complying,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Said, solemnly eying",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My edible parts from the tree:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“It isn’t to nations",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I look for my rations",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To any extent or degree.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They don’t fill the hollow in me",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To an appreciable degree.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Yet the seasons ensuing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will see something doing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To heighten my manifest glee.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis soldiers that mostly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Appeal to my ghostly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unusual appetite, see?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They’re easy digesting to me",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With my singular appetite, see?”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then I hammered my forehead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To think of that horrid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Old bird with his appetite free,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A-sitting there, lacking",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Compassion and cracking",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His beak, on a coconut tree,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As if merely saying to me:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“Oh, what a fine coconut tree.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I said somewhat later:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Our Administrator",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Freedom’s estate, O see!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "His Administration",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Presents us a ‘nation’",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That’s spelled with the Terrible D!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And ‘nation’ is hateful to me",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When led by the Terrible D.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}