{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/to-one-out-of-favor",
 "title": "To One Out of Favor",
 "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": 47,
 "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": 25,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Attention, Miles! You have observed, no doubt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That General Sam Young is “fired out”;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That is to say, retired for age. Just so;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You were yourself retired not long ago⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just “cast as rubbish to the void” (for such",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is Law’s demand)⁠—alighting where ’tis much",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too cold for comfort. There you may be found",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Piled up on Fame’s eternal dumping-ground.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If you’ve a memory you still can tell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yourself how singularly hard you fell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And no one “kissed the place to make it well.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I know not (Mr. Root knows little else)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why Sam should fare so better far than Nelse,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But so he did, for scarcely did he light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ere Mr. Secretary gripped him tight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stood him erect, removed his coat and shirt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, finding on his person where it hurt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Performed, in pity for his hapless plight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The appropriate consolatory rite.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Miles, you are lucky! True, you’re badly bruised,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wound administered, the balm refused;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But if too rashly you had dared to strip",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your aching back for the official lip,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Consider the temptation (none can fight it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who has Administration teeth) to bite it!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}