{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/the-new-enoch-arden",
 "title": "The New Enoch Arden",
 "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": null,
 "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": 52,
  "n_stanzas": 13,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Enoch Arden was an able",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seaman; hear of his mishap⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Not in wild mendacious fable,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As ’twas told by t’other chap;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For I hold it is a youthful",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Indiscretion to tell lies,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the writer that is truthful",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has the reader that is wise.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Enoch Arden, able seaman,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On an isle was cast away,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And before he was a free man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Time had touched him up with gray.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Long he searched the fair horizon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seated on a mountain top;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Vessel ne’er he set his eyes on",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That would undertake to stop.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Seeing that his sight was growing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dim and dimmer day by day,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Enoch said he must be going.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So he rose and went away⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Went away and so continued",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till he lost his lonely isle:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Mr. Arden was so sinewed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He could row for many a mile.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Compass he had not, nor sextant,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To direct him o’er the sea:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ere ’twas known that he was extant,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At his boyhood’s home was he.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When he saw the hills and hollows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the streets he could but know,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He gave utterance as follows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the sentiments below:",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Blast my tarry toplights! (shiver,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too, my timbers!) but, I say,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "W’at a larruk to diskiver,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I’ve lost my blessed way!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“W’at, alas, would be my bloomin’",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fate if Philip now I see,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Which I lammed?⁠—or my old ’oman,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which has frequent basted me?”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All the landscape swam around him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the thought of such a lot:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In a swoon his Annie found him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And conveyed him to her cot.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Twas the very house, the garden,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where their honeymoon was passed:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas the place where Mrs. Arden",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would have mourned him to the last.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, what grief she’d known without him!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now what tears of joy she shed!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Enoch Arden looked about him:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Shanghaied!”⁠—that was all he said.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}