{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/the-mormon-question",
 "title": "The Mormon Question",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V",
 "book_slug": "collected-works-v",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 51,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume V (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from Volume V of the Neale collected edition (copyright 1911). That is the printing this text comes from, not the poem's first appearance: the volume's own preface states that most of its verses are republished from newspapers and periodicals of the Pacific Coast, and which of them printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/collectedworksof05bierrich"
  ]
 },
 "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": 17,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 53,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I said I will shake myself out of my clothes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will roll up my sleeves, I will spit on my hands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(The hands that I kissed to the sun in the lands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the north, to the east, to the south, and the west",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of every sea that is under the sun),",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will go to the land that the Gentile loathes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As he gathers his one small wife to his breast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And curses and loathes till his life is done.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will go to the place of the Mormon: the place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the jackass rabbit is first in the race",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the woodchuck chatters in meaningless glee⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chatters and twists all his marvelous face⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Twists it and chatters and looks like me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I rose in the strongest strength of my strength,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With my breast of brass and my hair’s full length,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I shook myself out of my clothes in the land",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the Mormons, and stood there and kissed my hand.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}