{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/lusus-politicus",
 "title": "Lusus Politicus",
 "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": 164,
 "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": 55,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 4
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Come in, old gentleman. How do you do?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Delighted, I’m sure, that you’ve called.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I’m a sociable sort of a chap and you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are a pleasant-appearing person, too,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a head agreeably bald.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That’s right⁠—sit down in the scuttle of coal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And put up your feet in a chair.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It is better to have them there;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I’ve always said that a hat of lead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such as I see you wear,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Was a better hat than a hat of glass.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And your boots of brass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are a natural kind of boots, I swear.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“May you wipe your nose on a paper of pins?”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Why, certainly, man, why not?",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "I rather expected you’d do so before,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When I saw you poking it in at the door.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s dev’lish hot⁠—",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "The weather, I mean. “You are twins”?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why, that was evident at the start,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the way that you paint your head",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In stripes of purple and red,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With dots of yellow.",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "That proves you a fellow",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "With a love of legitimate art.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“You’ve bitten a snake and are feeling bad”?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That’s very sad,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "But Longfellow’s words I beg to recall:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your lot is the common lot of all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Horses are trees and the moon is a sneeze”?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, I fancy, is just as you please.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some think that way, and others hold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The contrary view;",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "I never quite knew,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "For the matter o’ that,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "When everything has been said.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May I offer this mat",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "If you will stand on your head?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I suppose I look to be upside down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From your present point of view.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s a giddy old world, from king to clown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a topsy-turvy, too.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But, worthy and now uninverted old man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re built, at least, on a normal plan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If ever a truth I spoke.",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Smoke?",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "Your air and conversation",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Are a liberal education,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "And your clothes, including the metal hat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the brazen boots⁠—what’s that?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“You never could stomach a Democrat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since General Jackson ran?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re another sort, but you predict",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That your party’ll get consummately licked?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Good God! what a queer old man!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}