{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/quintessence",
 "title": "Quintessence",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Fiend’s Delight",
 "book_slug": "the-fiends-delight",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 6,
 "container": "Poesy",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1873,
  "venue": "The Fiend’s Delight (1873)",
  "note": "Taken from The Fiend's Delight (1873), Bierce's first book. Its preface says what the volume is: the pieces in it are “taken mainly from various Californian journals”. So 1873 is the first book printing located, not the poem's first appearance, and which newspaper printed it first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4793"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "poesy.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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Sir Muscle speaks, and nations bend the ear:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Hark ye these Notes⁠—our wit quintuple hear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Five able-bodied editors combine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their strength prodigious in each laboured line!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O wondrous vintner! hopeless seemed the task",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bung these drainings in a single cask;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The riddle’s read⁠—five leathern skins contain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The working juice, and scarcely feel the strain.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Saviours of Rome! will wonders never cease?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A ballad cackled by five tuneful geese!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon one Rocinante five stout knights",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ride fiercely into visionary fights!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A cap and bells five sturdy fools adorn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Five porkers battle for a grain of corn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Five donkeys squeeze into a narrow stall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Five tumble-bugs propel a single ball!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}