{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/the-troubadour",
 "title": "The Troubadour",
 "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": 5,
 "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": 42,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Professor Gayley, you’re a great man, sure!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They say that you can almost fly!⁠—can spell",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And parse, but cannot figure well",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "(For mathematics is not literature)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hold⁠—with rancor⁠—that twice two are fewer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than they’re cracked up to be. Let sinners tell",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherein you disappoint, but I will swell",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The chorus of your greatness. I’ll procure",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For that exploit a megaphone of brass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And roar your excellences to the sky,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And fill with witness all the world! Alas,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You can’t write poetry! No more can I,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But that, you’ll notice, is another matter.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Besides, I’m less ubiloquent, and fatter.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You hold the Chair, so your credentials say,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of English Letters. That is well and fine.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Through teaching diligently, line by line,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You may yourself have the good luck some day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To learn enough of it to bid you stay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your red right hand from making it. The nine",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Dear Muses then with laurels will entwine",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Your brows and leg it lightly to display",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their joy. O bold, bad poet, hear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These words of wisdom (from a grizzled head)",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Inserted civilly into your ear:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In teaching verse you’ll better earn your bread,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And on our feelings less unkindly trample,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If you will work by precept, not example.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Not all the shouting capitals you use",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can strengthen feebleness, nor all the skill",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You lack conceal the foolish hates that fill",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The fountain whence the driblet of your views",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flows in a dirty channel to suffuse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With slime the British Empire! Dip your quill",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In something sweeter and you’ll write less ill⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "At least your rant we better can excuse.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No doubt you wish you had been born a Boer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Spelling excepted, so indeed you were;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A Bore as well) but that’s a very poor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ambition. By the Lord! I should prefer",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To be a Briton though they shot me daily",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And threw my body to your hoofs, Jack Gayley.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}