{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/to-a-stray-dog",
 "title": "To a Stray Dog",
 "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": 115,
 "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": [
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   "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Well, Towser (I’m thinking your name must be Towser),",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You’re a decentish puppy as puppy dogs go,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For you never, I’m sure, could have dined upon trowser,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And your tail’s unimpeachably curled just so.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But, dear me! your name⁠—if ’tis yours⁠—is a “poser”:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its meaning I cannot get anywise at,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When spoken correctly perhaps it is Toser,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And means one who toses. Max Muller, how’s that?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I ne’er was ingenious at all at divining",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A word’s prehistorical, primitive state,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Or finding its root, like a mole, by consigning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its bloom to the turnip-top’s sorrowful fate.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And, now that I think of it well, I’m no nearer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The riddle’s solution than ever⁠—for how’s",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My pretty invented word, “tose,” any clearer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In point of its signification than “towse”?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "So, Towser (or Toser), I mean to rename you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In honor of some good and eminent man,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In the light and the heat of whose quickening fame you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May grow to an eminent dog if you can.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In sunshine like his you’ll not long be a croucher:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Senate shall hear you⁠—for that I will vouch.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Come here, sir. Stand up. I rechristen you Goucher.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But damn you! I’ll shoot you if ever you Gouch!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}