{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/posteritys-award",
 "title": "Posterity’s Award",
 "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": 8,
 "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": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I’d long been dead, but I returned to earth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some small affairs posterity was making",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A mess of, and I came to see that worth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Received its dues. I’d hardly finished waking,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The grave-mould still upon me, when my eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perceived a statue standing straight and high.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Twas a colossal figure⁠—bronze and gold⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nobly designed, in attitude commanding.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A toga from its shoulders, fold on fold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fell to the pedestal on which ’twas standing.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nobility it had and splendid grace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all it should have had⁠—except a face!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It showed no features: not a trace nor sign",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of any eyes or nose could be detected⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "On the smooth oval of its front no line",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where sites for mouths are commonly selected.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All blank and blind its faulty head it reared.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let this be said: ’twas generously eared.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Seeing these things, I straight began to guess",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For whom this mighty image was intended.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“The head,” I cried, “is Upton’s, and the dress",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is Parson Bartlett’s own.” True, his cloak ended",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Flush with his lowest vertebra, but no",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sane sculptor ever made a toga so.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then on the pedestal these words I read:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Erected Eighteen Hundred Ninety-seven”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "(Saint Christofer! how fast the time had sped!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of course it naturally does in Heaven)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“To ⸻” (here a blank space for the name began)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“The Nineteenth Century’s Great Foremost Man!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Completed” the inscription ended, “in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Year Three Thousand“⁠—which was just arriving.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By Jove! thought I, ’twould make the founders grin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To learn whose fame so long has been surviving⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To read the name posterity will place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that blank void, and view the finished face.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Even as I gazed, the year Three Thousand came,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then by acclamation all the people",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Decreed whose was our century’s best fame;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then scaffolded the statue like a steeple,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To make the likeness; and the name was sunk",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deep in the pedestal’s metallic trunk.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Whose was it? Gentle reader, pray excuse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The seeming rudeness, but I can’t consent to",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Be so forehanded with important news.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas neither yours nor mine⁠—let that content you.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If not, the name I must surrender, which,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon a dead man’s word, was Deacon Fitch!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}