{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/the-passing-show",
 "title": "The Passing Show",
 "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": 1,
 "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": 76,
  "n_stanzas": 19,
  "n_parts": 2,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    12
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    12,
    19
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I know not if it was a dream. I viewed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A city where the restless multitude,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Between the eastern and the western deep",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Had reared gigantic fabrics, strong and rude.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Colossal palaces crowned every height;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Towers from valleys climbed into the light;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O’er dwellings at their feet, great golden domes",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Hung in the blue, barbarically bright.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But now, new-glimmering to-east, the day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Touched the black masses with a grace of gray,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dim spires of temples to the nation’s God",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Studding high spaces of the wide survey.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Well did the roofs their solemn secret keep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of life and death stayed by the truce of sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet whispered of an hour when sleepers wake,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The fool to hope afresh, the wise to weep.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The gardens greened upon the builded hills",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Above the tethered thunders of the mills",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With sleeping wheels unstirred to service yet",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "By the tamed torrents and the quickened rills.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A hewn acclivity, reprieved a space,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looked on the builder’s blocks about his base",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bared his wounded breast in sign to say:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“Strike! ’tis my destiny to lodge your race.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“ ’Twas but a breath ago the mammoth browsed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon my slopes, and in my caves I housed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your shaggy fathers in their nakedness,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "While on their foeman’s offal they caroused.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ships from afar afforested the bay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within their huge and chambered bodies lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wealth of continents; and merrily sailed",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The hardy argosies to far Cathay.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Beside the city of the living spread⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strange fellowship!⁠—the city of the dead;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And much I wondered what its humble folk,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To see how bravely they were housed, had said.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Noting how firm their habitations stood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Broad-based and free of perishable wood⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How deep in granite and how high in brass",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The names were wrought of eminent and good,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I said: “When gold or power is their aim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The smile of beauty or the wage of shame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Men dwell in cities; to this place they fare",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When they would conquer an abiding fame.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "From the red East the sun⁠—a solemn rite⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crowned with a flame the cross upon a height",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Above the dead; and then with all his strength",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Struck the great city all aroar with light!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I know not if it was a dream. I came",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unto a land where something seemed the same",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I had known as ’twere but yesterday,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But what it was I could not rightly name.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It was a strange and melancholy land.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent and desolate. On either hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lay waters of a sea that seemed as dead,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And dead above it seemed the hills to stand.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Grayed all with age, those lonely hills⁠—ah me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How worn and weary they appeared to be!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Between their feet long dusty fissures clove",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The plain in aimless windings to the sea.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One hill there was which, parted from the rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stood where the eastern water curved a-west.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent and passionless it stood. I thought",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw a scar upon its giant breast.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The sun with sullen and portentous gleam",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hung like a menace on the sea’s extreme;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor the dead waters, nor the far, bleak bars",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of cloud were conscious of his failing beam.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It was a dismal and a dreadful sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That desert in its cold, uncanny light;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No soul but I alone to mark the fear",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And imminence of everlasting night!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All presages and prophecies of doom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glimmered and babbled in the ghastly gloom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in the midst of that accursed scene",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A wolf sat howling on a broken tomb.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}