{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/in-dissuasion",
 "title": "In Dissuasion",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-v",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 10,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume V of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1911). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface states that most of its verses are republished from newspapers and periodicals of the Pacific Coast, and which of them printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "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"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Dan Burns, you’d be a Senator, I hear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Senators are persons of much note.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I cannot choose but think it very queer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That you solicit for the place a vote.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Why, don’t you know you’ll have to ride the goat,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Be skyward from a shaken blanket hurled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And put in session on a heated chair",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till your immortal part is more than rare⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Your foretaste of another, warmer world?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis said that all ambitious louts who dare",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Aspire to Senatorial fame receive it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In some such fashion, though I don’t believe it.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Still, you’ll suppose that this has all occurred.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If in that Upper House you e’er arise,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Trembly and hot, to speak your maiden word⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Walls, desks, floor, ceiling to your failing eyes",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Seeming to blend, and Senators like flies",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To spin about in space! Rash man, forbear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To cherish your accurst ambition! Sir,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Your breeding and your character confer",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Small right to breathe in that expanded air.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For toads to perch with eagles is to err.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Pray Heaven to send contentment with your station",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bar you from the hauls of legislation.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The toga, if you win it, scarce will serve",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To cover up the stripes (where are the stars?)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which to a fertile fancy seem to curve",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Round you like shadows of the prison bars.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Embezzlement, I’m told, exists in Mars,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where sometimes an official will “convey”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in “the shadow of the jail” abide",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till it seems photographed upon his hide",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And shapes his gait, as if he dragged alway",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A ball-and-chain. Upon the Moon’s far side",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Dwells such a man, who knows not (goes the story)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which of the saints he is when out for glory.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}