{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/three-kinds-of-a-rogue",
 "title": "Three Kinds of a Rogue",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Ambrose Bierce",
 "poet_slug": "ambrose-bierce",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "book_slug": "black-beetles-in-amber",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 6,
 "container": "Black Beetles in Amber",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1892,
  "venue": "Black Beetles in Amber (1892)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier"
  ]
 },
 "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",
  "corrections": [
   {
    "line": 2,
    "field": "indent",
    "was": 0,
    "now": 2,
    "why": "Indentation absent from the source markup and measured from the scan: this line starts 6.5 character advances (~3.2 em) right of its own page's base margin, where the verse sets flush. Converted at 3.0 advances per indent level (tools/defects.py indent).",
    "checked_against": "https://archive.org/details/blackbeetlesinam00bier",
    "date": "2026-08-20"
   }
  ]
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 107,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 3,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 2
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [
  {
   "ordinal": "I",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    0,
    1
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "II",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    1,
    2
   ]
  },
  {
   "ordinal": "III",
   "title": null,
   "stanza_range": [
    2,
    4
   ]
  }
 ],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Sharon, ambitious of immortal shame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fame’s dead-wall daubed with his illustrious name⁠—",
    "indent": 2
   },
   {
    "text": "Served in the Senate, for our sins, his time,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each word a folly and each vote a crime;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Law for our governance well skilled to make",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By knowledge gained in study how to break;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet still by the presiding eye ignored,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which only sought him when too loud he snored.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Auspicious thunder!⁠—when he woke to vote",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He stilled his own, to cut his country’s, throat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That rite performed, fell off again to sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While statesmen ages dead awoke to weep!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For sedentary service all unfit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By lying long disqualified to sit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wasting below as he decayed aloft,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His seat grown harder as his brain grew soft,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He left the hall he could not bring away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And grateful millions blessed the happy day!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whate’er contention in that hall is heard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His sovereign State has still the final word:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For disputatious statesmen when they roar",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Startle the ancient echoes of his snore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which from their dusty nooks expostulate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And close with stormy clamor the debate.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To low melodious thunders then they fade;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their murmuring lullabies all ears invade;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Peace takes the Chair; the portal Silence keeps;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No motion stirs the dark Lethean deeps⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Washoe has spoken and the Senate sleeps.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lo! the new Sharon with a new intent,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Making no laws, but keen to circumvent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The laws of Nature (since he can’t repeal)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That break his failing body on the wheel.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As Tantalus again and yet again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The elusive wave endeavors to restrain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To slake his awful thirst, so Sharon tries",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To purchase happiness that age denies;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Obtains the shadow, but the substance goes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hugs the thorn, but cannot keep the rose;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For Dead Sea fruits bids prodigally, eats,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then, with tardy reformation⁠—cheats.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Alert his faculties as three score years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And four score vices will permit, he nears⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dicing with Death⁠—the finish of the game,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And curses still his candle’s wasting flame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The narrow circle of whose feeble glow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dims and diminishes at every throw.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Moments his losses, pleasures are his gains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which even in his grasp revert to pains.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The joy of grasping⁠—that alone remains.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ring up the curtain and the play protract!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Behold our Sharon in his last mad act.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With man long warring, quarreling with God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He crouches now beneath a woman’s rod",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Predestined for his back while yet it lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Closed in an acorn which, one luckless day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He stole, unconscious of its foetal twig,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the scant garner of a sightless pig.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With bleeding shoulders pitilessly scored,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He bawls more lustily than once he snored.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sympathetic “Comstocks” droop to hear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Carson river sheds a viscous tear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which sturdy tumble-bugs assail amain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With ready thrift, and urge along the plain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The jackass rabbit sorrows as he lopes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sage-brush glooms along the mountain slopes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In rising clouds the poignant alkali,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tearless itself, makes everybody cry.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Washoe canaries” on the Geiger Grade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Subdue the singing of their cavalcade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, wiping with their ears the tears unshed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grieve for their family’s unlucky head.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Virginia City intermits her trade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And well-clad strangers walk her streets unflayed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nay, all Nevada ceases work to weep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the recording angel goes to sleep.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But in his dreams his goose-quill’s creaking fount",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Augments the debits in the long account.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And still the continents and oceans ring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With royal torments of the Silver King!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Incessant bellowings fill all the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mingled with inextinguishable mirth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He roars, men laugh, Nevadans weep, beasts howl,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Plash the affrighted fish, and shriek the fowl!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With monstrous din their blended thunders rise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Peal upon peal, and blare along the skies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Startle in hell the Sharons as they groan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And shake the splendors of the great white throne!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still roaring outward through the vast profound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The spreading circles of receding sound",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pursue each other in a failing race",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the cold confines of eternal space;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There break and die along that awful shore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which God’s own eyes have never dared explore⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dark, fearful, formless, nameless evermore!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Look to the west! Against yon steely sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lone Mountain rears its holy cross on high.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "About its base the meek-faced dead are laid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To share the benediction of its shade.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With crossed white hands, shut eyes and formal feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their nights are innocent, their days discreet.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sharon, some years, perchance, remain of life⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of vice and greed, vulgarity and strife;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then⁠—God speed the day if such His will⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’ll lie among the dead you helped to kill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And be in good society at last,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your purse unsilvered and your face unbrassed.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}