{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/saith-the-czar",
 "title": "Saith the Czar",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-iv",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 30,
 "container": "Shapes of Clay",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1910,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume IV (1910)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume IV of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1910). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface speaks of the verses republished in this volume and the next, and which newspaper or earlier book printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof04bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "My people come to me and make their moan:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“We starve, your Majesty⁠—give us a stone.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That’s flat rebellion!⁠—how the devil dare",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They starve right in my capital? Their prayer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For something in their bellies I will meet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With that which I’ll not trouble them to eat.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They ask for greater freedom. No, indeed⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What happened to my ancestor who freed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The serfs? His grateful subjects duly flung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Something that spoke to him without a tongue.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So he was sacrificed for Freedom’s sake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And gathered to his fathers with a rake.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I from Autocracy my people free?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah, would to Heaven they could deliver me!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}