{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/lucifer-of-the-torch",
 "title": "Lucifer of the Torch",
 "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": 28,
 "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": 39,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O Reverend Ravlin, once with sounding lung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You shook the bloody banner of your tongue,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Urged all the fiery boycotters afield",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And swore you’d rather see them die than yield.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alas, how brief the time, how great the change!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your dogs of war are ailing all of mange;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The loose leash dangles from your finger-tips,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the loud “havoc” dies upon your lips.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No spirit animates your feeble clay⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’d rather yield than even run away.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In vain McGlashan labors to inspire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your pallid nostril with his breath of fire:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The light of battle’s faded from your face⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You keep the peace, John Chinaman his place.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O Ravlin, what cold water, thrown by whom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the kindling Boycott’s ruddy bloom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has slaked your parching blood-thirst and allayed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The flash and shimmer of your lingual blade?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your salary⁠—your salary’s unpaid!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the old days, when Christ with scourges drave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Ravlins headlong from the Temple’s nave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each bore upon his pelt the mark divine⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Boycott’s red authenticating sign.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Birth-marked forever in surviving hurts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glowing and smarting underneath their shirts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Successive Ravlins have revenged their shame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By blowing every coal and flinging flame.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And you, the latest (may you be the last!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Endorsed with that hereditary, vast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And monstrous rubric, would the feud prolong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save that cupidity forbids the wrong.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In strife you preferably pass your days⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But brawl no moment longer than it pays.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By shouting when no more you can incite",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dogs to put the timid sheep to flight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To load, for you, the brambles with their fleece,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You cackle concord to congenial geese,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put pinches of goodwill upon their tails",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And pluck them with a touch that never fails.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}