{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/revenge",
 "title": "Revenge",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Shapes of Clay",
 "book_slug": "shapes-of-clay",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 156,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1903,
  "venue": "Shapes of Clay (1903)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/shapesofclay00bier"
  ]
 },
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 46,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "A spitcat sate on a garden gate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a snapdog fared beneath;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Careless and free was his mien, and he",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Held a fiddle-string in his teeth.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She marked his march, she wrought an arch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of her back and blew up her tail;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And her eyes were green as ever were seen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And she uttered a woeful wail.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The spitcat’s plaint was as follows: “It ain’t",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I am to music a foe;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For fiddle-strings bide in my own inside,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I twang them soft and low.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“But that dog has trifled with art and rifled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A kitten of mine, ah me!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That catgut slim was marauded from him:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis the string that men call E.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then she sounded high, in the key of Y,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A note that cracked the tombs;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the missiles through the firmament flew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From adjacent sleeping-rooms.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As her gruesome yell from the gate-post fell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She followed it down to earth;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And that snapdog wears a placard that bears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The inscription: “Blind from birth.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}