{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/in-warning",
 "title": "In Warning",
 "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": 56,
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "They tell us, dear Kipling, you’re coming to shoot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the hills of the wide, wild West.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There’s a lot of cost and a risk to boot⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I don’t at all think it is best,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And hope it is only a jest.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For, Rudyard, although you’re a terrible swell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re not in high favor out here;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For you said San Francisco was meaner than⁠—well,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You said it was very small beer",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And Chicago uncommonly queer.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You put your legs under our tables, you did,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You dined at the Jollidog Club;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And when of your hunger you well were rid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(And your manners too) like a cub",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You snarled at the speeches and grub.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You said⁠—I don’t know the one half that you said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I know you pretended to meet",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Some folk that existed not out of your head",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or an English comical sheet.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And you vilified Kearny street!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our statesman apparently didn’t get far",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the favor of one so too,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Too utterly fine. Nor the plump cigar",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor the shiny hat could woo",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The sweet and beautiful You.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But hardest of all our hearts you wrung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With assorted pangs and woes",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When you said you could speak the English tongue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But not the American nose.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And you damned our orators o’s!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For all of this and for all of that",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’d better abate your flame,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And remain where pheasants are tame and fat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sportsman takes his aim,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As a general thing, at the game.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Out here when we go to shoot, perhaps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor beast nor bird we see;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So we just let go at the Britisher chaps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who have made remarks too free,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the same surcease to be.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}