{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/three-candidates-for-senator",
 "title": "Three Candidates for Senator",
 "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": 45,
 "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To sleek your way to the goal of your hope,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O plausible Mr. Perkins,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ll need ten tons of the softest soap",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And butter a thousand firkins.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The soap you could put to a better use",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In washing your hands of ambition",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ere the butter’s used for cooking your goose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To a beautiful brown condition.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“The Railroad can’t run Stanford.” That is so⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The tail can’t curl the pig; but then, you know,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Inside the vegetable-garden’s pale",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pig will eat more cabbage than the tail.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Gods! what a sight! Astride McClure’s broad back",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Estee jogs round the Senatorial track,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The crowd all undecided, as they pass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether to cheer the man or cheer the ass.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They stop: the man to lower his feet is seen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the tired beast, withdrawing from between,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mounts, as they start again, the biped’s neck,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And scarce the crowd can say which one’s on deck.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}