{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/inter-arma-silent-leges",
 "title": "Inter Arma Silent Leges",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Fiend’s Delight",
 "book_slug": "the-fiends-delight",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 5,
 "container": "Poesy",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1873,
  "venue": "The Fiend’s Delight (1873)",
  "note": "Taken from The Fiend's Delight (1873), Bierce's first book. Its preface says what the volume is: the pieces in it are “taken mainly from various Californian journals”. So 1873 is the first book printing located, not the poem's first appearance, and which newspaper printed it first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "poesy.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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "About the polls the freedmen drew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To vote the freemen down;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And merrily their caps up-flew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As Grant rode through the town.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From votes to staves they next did turn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And beat the freemen down;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Full bravely did their valour burn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As Grant rode through the town.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then staves for muskets they forsook,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And shot the freemen down;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Right royally their banners shook",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As Grant rode through the town.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Hail, final triumph of our cause!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hail, chief of mute renown!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Grim Magistrate of Silent Laws,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A-riding freedom down!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}