{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/my-day-of-life",
 "title": "My Day of Life",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-iv",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 33,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1910,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV (1910)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume IV of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1910). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface speaks of the verses republished in this volume and the next, and which newspaper or earlier book printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 42,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I know not how it is⁠—it seems",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fantastic and surprising",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That after all these dreams and dreams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here in the sun’s first level beams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sun is still just rising!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When first he showed his sovereign face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bade the night-folk scuttle",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Back to their holes, I took my place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Here on the hill, and God His grace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sent slumber soft and subtle.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Among the poppies red and white,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ve lain and drowsed, for all it",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Appears a sluggardly delight.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I must have had a wakeful night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though, faith, I don’t recall it.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And, O I’ve dreamed so many things!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One hardly can unravel",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The tangled web of visionings",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That slumber-of-the-morning brings:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Play, study, work and travel;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The love of women (mostly those",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were fairest that were newest);",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Hard knocks from friends and other foes:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Compacts with men (my memory shows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The deadest are the truest);",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "War⁠—what a hero I became",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By merely dreaming battle!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Athwart the field of letters, Fame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Blared through the brass my weary name",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With an ominous death-rattle.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Such an eternity of thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within a minute’s fraction!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Such phantoms out of nothing wrought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And fading suddenly to naught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As I awake to action!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They scamper each into its hole,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These dreams of my begetting.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They’ve had their moment; take, my soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy day of life.⁠ ⁠… Gods! this is droll⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That thieving sun is setting!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}