{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/on-the-scales",
 "title": "On the Scales",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-v",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 4,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume V of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1911). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface states that most of its verses are republished from newspapers and periodicals of the Pacific Coast, and which of them printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The proverb hath it, Waterman:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“There never is great loss without",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Some little gain.” ’Tis Nature’s plan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of restitution, I’ve no doubt;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As sometimes a repentant thief",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Restores, for conscience’s relief,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some ten percent, or thereabout,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of all the loot with which he ran.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Dear Governor, when you were ill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You lost, they say, some twenty pound;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But, muse and ponder as I will.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cast my searching thoughts around,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I find in that great loss no gain⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unless indeed in heart and brain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You suffered it; but I’ll be bound",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That they are unaffected still.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For still you’re foolish and absurd,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And still malicious and perverse",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As ever; and in truth I’ve heard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That since recovering you’re worse.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The inference, I think, is fair:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You lost not what we best could spare:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your character remains to curse",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The State until you’re sepulchred.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Tis true there’s measurably less",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of you to pack⁠—and you’re a load⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But chiefly that concerns, I guess,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The patient beast that you bestrode",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When, booted, spurred and gloved and all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You led Mark Boruck from the stall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To ride him on that rocky road,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Political unrighteousness.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In gain to Boruck, though, we scan",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A loss to every honest soul,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It aids the weekly Harridan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His thoroughbred-and-butter foal.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To end: the weight whose loss we mourn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From Waterman by illness torn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was mostly water⁠—it were droll",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To learn he’d twenty pounds of man!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}