{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/with-mine-own-petard",
 "title": "With Mine Own Petard",
 "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": 112,
 "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": 38,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Time was the local poets sang their songs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beneath their breath in terror of the thongs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I snapped about their shins. Though mild the stroke",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bards, like the conies, are “a feeble folk,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fearing all noises but the one they make",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Themselves⁠—at which all other mortals quake.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now from their cracked and disobedient throats,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like rats from sewers scampering, their notes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pour forth to move, where’er the season serves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If not our legs to dance, at least our nerves;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As once a ram’s-horn solo maddened all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sober-minded stones in Jerich’s wall.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A year’s exemption from the critic’s curse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mends the bard’s courage but impairs his verse.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus poolside frogs, when croaking in the night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are frayed to silence by a meteor’s flight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or by the sudden plashing of a stone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From some adjacent cottage garden thrown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But straight renew the song with double din",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whene’er the light goes out or man goes in.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall I with arms unbraced (my casque unlatched,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My falchion pawned, my buckler, too, attached)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resume the cuishes and the broad cuirass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Accomplishing my body all in brass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And arm in battle royal to oppose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A village poet singing through the nose?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No, let them rhyme; I fought them once before",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stilled their songs⁠—but, Satan! how they swore!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cuffed them upon the mouth whene’er their throats",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They cleared for action with their sweetest notes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Twisted their ears (they’d oft tormented mine)",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And damned them roundly all along the line;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Clubbed the whole crew from the Parnassian slopes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A wreck of broken heads and broken hopes!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What gained I so? I feathered every curse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Launched at the village bards with lilting verse.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The town approved and christened me (to show its",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "High admiration) Chief of Local Poets!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}