{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/to-a-censor",
 "title": "To a Censor",
 "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": 34,
 "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": 64,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Delay responsible? Why, then; my friend,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Impeach Delay and you will make an end.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thrust vile Delay in jail and let it rot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For doing all the things that it should not.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put not good-natured judges under bond,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But make Delay in damages respond.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Minos, Aeacus, Rhadamanthus, rolled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into one pitiless, unsmiling scold⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unsparing censor, be your thongs uncurled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To “lash the rascals naked through the world.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rascals? Nay, Rascality’s the thing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Above whose back your knotted scourges sing.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your satire, truly, like a razor keen,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Wounds with a touch that’s scarcely felt or seen;”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For naught that you assail with falchion free",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has either nerves to feel or eyes to see.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against abstractions evermore you charge:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You hack no helmet and you need no targe.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That wickedness is wrong and sin a vice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That wrong’s not right, nor foulness ever nice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fearless affirm. All consequences dare:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smite the offense and the offender spare.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When Ananias and Sapphira lied",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Falsehood, had you been there, had surely died.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When money-changers in the Temple sat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At money-changing you’d have whirled the “cat”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(That John-the-Baptist of the modern pen)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all the brokers would have cried amen!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Good friend, if any judge deserve your blame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you no courage, or has he no name?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon his method will you wreak your wrath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Himself all unmolested in his path?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fall to! fall to!⁠—your club no longer draw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To beat the air or flail a man of straw.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scorn to do justice like the Saxon thrall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who cuffed the offender’s shadow on a wall.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let rascals in the flesh attest your zeal⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knocked on the mazzard or tripped up at heel!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We know that judges are corrupt. We know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That crimes are lively and that laws are slow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We know that lawyers lie and doctors slay;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That priests and preachers are but birds of pray;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That merchants cheat and journalists for gold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flatter the vicious while at vice they scold.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis all familiar as the simple lore",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That two policemen and two thieves make four.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But since, while some are wicked some are good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(As trees may differ though they all are wood)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Names, here and there, to show whose head is hit,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bad would sentence and the good acquit.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In sparing everybody none you spare:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rebukes most personal are least unfair.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To fire at random if you still prefer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And swear at Dog but never kick a cur,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Permit me yet one ultimate appeal",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To something that you understand and feel:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let thrift and vanity your heart persuade⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You might be read if you would learn your trade.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Good brother cynics (you have doubtless guessed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not one of you but all are here addressed)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Remember this: the shaft that seeks a heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Draws all eyes after it; an idle dart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shot at some shadow flutters o’er the green,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its flight unheeded and its fall unseen.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}