{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/to-my-liars",
 "title": "To My Liars",
 "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": 21,
 "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": 1,
    "why": "Indentation absent from the source markup and measured from the scan: this line starts 3.5 character advances (~1.7 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": 72,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Attend, mine enemies of all degrees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From sandlot orators and other fleas",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To fallen gentlemen and rising louts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who babble slander at your drinking bouts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, filled with unfamiliar wine, begin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lies drowned, ere born, in more congenial gin.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But most attend, ye persons of the press",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who live (though why, yourselves alone can guess)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In hope deferred, ambitious still to shine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By hating me at half a cent a line⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like drones among the bees of brighter wing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sunless to shine and impotent to sting.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To estimate in easy verse I’ll try",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The controversial value of a lie.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So lend your ears⁠—God knows you have enough!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I mean to teach, and if I can’t I’ll cuff.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A lie is wicked, so the priests declare;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that to us is neither here nor there.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis worse than wicked, it is vulgar too;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "N’importe⁠—with that we’ve nothing here to do.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If ’twere artistic I would lie till death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And shape a falsehood with my latest breath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Parrhasius never more did pity lack,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The while his model writhed upon the rack,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than I should for my adversary’s pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(Who, stabbed with fibs again and yet again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would vainly seek to move my stubborn heart)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If slander were, and wit were not, an art.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ill-bred and illiterate can lie",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As fast as you, and faster far than I.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall I compete, then, in a strife accurst",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where Allen Forman is an easy first,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And where the second prize is rightly flung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To Charley Shortridge or to Mike de Young?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In mental combat but a single end",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Inspires the formidable to contend.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not by the raw recruit’s ambition fired,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By whom foul blows, though harmless, are admired;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not by the coward’s zeal, who, on his knee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Behind the bole of his protecting tree,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So curves his musket that the bark it fits,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, firing, blows the weapon into bits;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But with the noble aim of one whose heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Values his foeman for he loves his art",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The veteran debater moves afield,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Untaught to libel as untaught to yield.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dear foeman mine, I’ve but this end in view⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That to prevent which most you wish to do.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What, then, are you most eager to be at?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To hate me? Nay, I’ll help you, sir, at that.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This only passion does your soul inspire:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You wish to scorn me. Sir, you shall admire.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "’Tis not enough my neighbors that you school",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the belief that I’m a rogue or fool;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That small advantage you would gladly trade",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For what one moment would yourself persuade.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Write, then, your largest and your longest lie:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You shan’t believe it, howsoe’er you try.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No falsehood you can tell, no evil do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall turn me from the truth to injure you.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So all your war is barren of effect;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I find my victory in your respect.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What profit have you if the world you set",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Against me? For the world will soon forget",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It thought me this or that; but I’ll retain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A vivid picture of your moral stain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cherish till my memory expire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sweet, soft consciousness that you’re a liar",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is it your triumph, then, to prove that you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will do the thing that I would scorn to do?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God grant that I forever be exempt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From such advantage as my foe’s contempt.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}