{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/the-convicts-ball",
 "title": "The Convicts’ Ball",
 "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": 46,
 "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "San Quentin was brilliant. Within the halls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the noble pile with the frowning walls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(God knows they’ve enough to make them frown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a Governor trying to break them down!)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was a blaze of light. ’Twas the natal day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of his nibs the popular John S. Gray.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“The ball is free!” cried Black Bart, and they all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Said a ball with no chain was a novel ball;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“And I never have seed,” said Jimmy Hope,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Sech a lightsome dance withouten a rope.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chinamen, Indians, Portuguese, Blacks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Russians, Italians, Kanucks and Kanaks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chilenos, Peruvians, Mexicans⁠—all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Greased with their presence that notable ball.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "None were excluded excepting, perhaps,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Rev. Morrison’s churchly chaps,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom, to prevent a religious debate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Warden had banished outside of the gate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fiddler, fiddling his hardest the while,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Called off” in the regular foot-hill style:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Circle to the left!” and “Forward and back!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And “Hellum to port for the stabbard tack!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(This great virtuoso, it would appear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was Mate of the Gatherer many a year.)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Ally man left!”⁠—to a painful degree",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His French was unlike to the French of Paree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As heard from our countrymen lately abroad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And his “doe cee doe” was the gem of the fraud.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But what can you hope from a gentleman barred",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From circles of culture by dogs in the yard?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas a glorious dance, though, all the same:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Jardin Mabille in the days of its fame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never saw legs perform such springs⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cold-chisel’s magic had given them wings.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They footed it featly, those lades and gents:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dull care (said Long Moll) had a helly go-hence!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Twas a very aristocratic affair:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The crème de la crème of the place was there⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The swells and belles of our toughest sets,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Hubert Howe Bancroft sent his regrets.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}