{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/the-fall-of-miss-larkin",
 "title": "The Fall of Miss Larkin",
 "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": 150,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "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": "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": 44,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 67,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Hear me sing of Sally Larkin who, I’d have you understand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Played accordions as well as any lady in the land;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I’ve often heard it stated that her fingering was such",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That Professor Schweinenhauer was enchanted with her touch;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that beasts were so affected when her apparatus rang",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That they dropped upon their haunches and deliriously sang.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This I know from testimony, though a critic, I opine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Needs an ear that is dissimilar in some respects to mine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She could sing, too, like a jaybird, and they say all eyes were wet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Sally and the ranch-dog were performing a duet⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which I take it is a song that has to be so loudly sung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As to overtax the strength of any single human lung.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, at least, would seem to follow from the tale I have to tell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which (I’ve told you how she flourished) is how Sally Larkin fell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One day there came to visit Sally’s dad as sleek and smart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A chap as ever wandered there from any foreign part.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though his gentle birth and breeding he did not at all obtrude",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was somehow whispered round he was a simon-pure Dude.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Howsoe’er that may have been, it was conspicuous to see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That he was a real Gent of an uncommon high degree.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That Sally cast her tender and affectionate regards",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On this exquisite creation was, of course, upon the cards;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But he didn’t seem to notice, and was variously blind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To her many charms of person and the merits of her mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And preferred, I grieve to say it, to play poker with her dad,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And acted in a manner that in general was bad.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One evening⁠—’twas in summer⁠—she was holding in her lap",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her accordion, and near her stood that melancholy chap,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaning up against a pillar with his lip in grog imbrued,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thinking, maybe, of that ancient land in which he was a Dude.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then Sally, who was melancholy too, began to hum",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And elongate the accordion with a preluding thumb.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then sighs of amorosity she painfully exhaled,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And her music apparatus sympathetically wailed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“In the gloaming, O my darling!” rose that wild impassioned strain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And her eyes were fixed on his with an intensity of pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the ranch-dog from his kennel at the postern gate came round,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And going into session strove to magnify the sound.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He lifted up his spirit till the gloaming rang and rang",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the song that to his darling he impetuously sang!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then that musing youth, recalling all his soul from other scenes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where his fathers all were Dudes and his mothers all Dudines,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From his lips removed the beaker and politely, o’er the grog,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Said: “Miss Larkin, please be quiet: you will interrupt the dog.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}