{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/on-the-platform",
 "title": "On the Platform",
 "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": 65,
 "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": 18,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "When Dr. Bill Bartlett stepped out of the hum",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Mammon’s distracting and wearisome strife",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To stand and deliver a lecture on “Some",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Conditions of Intellectual Life,”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I cursed the offender who gave him the hall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To lecture on any conditions at all!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But he rose with a fire divine in his eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Haranguing with endless abundance of breath,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till I slept; and I dreamed of a gibbet reared high,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Dr. Bill Bartlett was dressing for death.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I thought in my dream: “These conditions, no doubt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are bad for the life he was talking about.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So I cried (pray remember this all was a dream):",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Get off of the platform!⁠—it isn’t the kind!”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But he fell through the trap, with a jerk at the beam,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wiggled his toes to unburden his mind.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, O, so bewitching the thoughts he advanced",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I clung to his ankles, attentive, entranced!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}