{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/stanley",
 "title": "Stanley",
 "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": 84,
 "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": 29,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Noting some great man’s composition vile:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A head of wisdom and a heart of guile,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A will to conquer and a soul to dare,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Joined to the manners of a dancing bear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fools unaccustomed to the wide survey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of various Nature’s compensating sway;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Untaught to separate the wheat and chaff,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To praise the one and at the other laugh;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yearn all in vain and impotently seek",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some flawless hero upon whom to wreak",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sycophantic worship of the weak.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not so the wise, from superstition free,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who find small pleasure in the supple knee;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quick to discriminate ’twixt good and bad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And willing in the king to find the cad⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No reason seen why genius and conceit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The power to dazzle and the will to cheat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The love of daring and the love of gin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should not dwell, peaceful, in a single skin.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To such, great Stanley, you’re a hero still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Despite your cradling in a tub for swill.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your peasant manners can’t efface the mark",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of light you drew across the Land of Dark.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In you the extremes of character are wed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To serve the quick and vilify the dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hero and clown! O, man of many sides,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Muse of Truth adores you and derides,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sheds, impartial, the revealing ray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon your head of gold and feet of clay.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}