{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/indicted",
 "title": "Indicted",
 "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": 92,
 "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"
  ]
 },
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Dear Bruner, once we had a little talk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(That is to say, ’twas I did all the talking)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "About the manner of your moral walk:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How devious the trail you made in stalking,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "On level ground, your law-protected game⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Another’s Dollar” is, I think, its name.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Your crooked course more recently is not",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So blamable; for, truly, you have stumbled",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "On evil days; and ’tis your luckless lot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To traverse spaces (with a spirit humbled,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Contrite, dejected and divinely sad)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where, ’tis confessed, the walking’s mighty bad.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Jordan, the song says, is a road (I thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was a river) that is hard to travel;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And Dublin, if you’d find it, must be sought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Along a highway with more rocks than gravel.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In difficulty neither can compete",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With that wherein you navigate your feet.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As once George Gorham said of Pixley, so",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I say of you: “The prison yawns before you,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The turnkey stalks behind!” Now will you go?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or lag, and let that functionary floor you?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To change the metaphor⁠—you seem to be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Between Judge Wallace and the deep, deep sea!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}