{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/in-memoriam",
 "title": "In Memoriam",
 "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": 58,
 "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": 54,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 47,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Beauty (they called her) wasn’t a maid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of many things in the world afraid.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She wasn’t a maid who turned and fled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At sight of a mouse, alive or dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She wasn’t a maid a man could “shoo”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By shouting, however abruptly, “Boo!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She wasn’t a maid who’d run and hide",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If her face and figure you idly eyed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She wasn’t a maid who’d blush and shake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When asked what part of the fowl she’d take.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(I blush myself to confess she preferred,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And commonly got, the most of the bird.)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She wasn’t a maid to simper because",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She was asked to sing⁠—if she ever was.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In short, if the truth must be displayed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All naked⁠—Beauty wasn’t a maid.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beauty, furry and fine and fat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yawny and clawy, sleek and all that,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was a pampered and spoiled Angora cat!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I loved her well, and I’m proud that she",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wasn’t indifferent, quite, to me;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In fact I have sometimes gone so far",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(You know, mesdames, how silly men are)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As to think she preferred⁠—excuse the conceit⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My legs upon which to sharpen her feet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps it shouldn’t have gone for much,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I started and thrilled beneath her touch!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, well, that’s ancient history now:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fingers of Time have touched my brow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I hear with never a start to-day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That Beauty has passed from the earth away.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gone!⁠—her death-song (it killed her) sung.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gone!⁠—her fiddlestrings all unstrung.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gone to the bliss of a new regime",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of turkey smothered in seas of cream;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of roasted mice (a superior breed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To science unknown and the coarser need",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the living cat) cooked by the flame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the dainty soul of an erring dame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who gave to purity all her care,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Neglecting the duty of daily prayer⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crisp, delicate mice, just touched with spice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the ghost of a breeze from Paradise;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A very digestible sort of mice.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Let scoffers sneer, I propose to hold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That Beauty has mounted the Stair of Gold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To eat and eat, forever and aye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On a velvet rug from a golden tray.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the human spirit⁠—that is my creed⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rots in the ground like a barren seed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That is my creed, abhorred by Man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But approved by Cat since time began.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till Death shall kick at me, thundering “Scat!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I shall hold to that, I shall hold to that.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}