{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/to-a-grabber",
 "title": "To a Grabber",
 "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": 20,
 "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": 21,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "If, Prentiss Maslin, you would kindly leave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A coin or two of what the State has hoarded",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We’d think it generous of you; for we’ve",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But just begun our fortunes to retrieve,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Having lost all our treasury afforded",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To certain robbers, who, departing, left",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Us you as a memorial of the theft.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Memorial? Bless you! you’re the very thing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Incarnate⁠—and by no means any cleaner",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For incarnation. Sir, you are the king",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of crimes, grown great and proud remembering",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When you were young and but a misdemeanor.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Let lesser souls be ravenous of pelf,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He scorns the gains of greed who’s greed itself.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What! shall a firework covetously yearn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While splendoring the skies⁠—a gorgeous rocket",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where golden constellations grandly burn⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To take the earth along? ’Tis sad to learn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That even the robe of glory has a pocket.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In you, alas! I’d fondly hoped to see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One man that loved himself unselfishly.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}