{
 "id": "ambrose-bierce/xviii",
 "title": "XVIII",
 "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": null,
 "container": "On Stone Some Ante-Mortem Epitaphs",
 "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": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/ambrose-bierce_poetry",
  "file": "on-stone.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": {
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  "n_stanzas": 1,
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  [
   {
    "text": "Cynic perforce from studying mankind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the false volume of his single mind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He damned his fellows for his own unworth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, bad himself, thought nothing good on earth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet, still so judging and so erring still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Observing well, but understanding ill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His learning all was got by dint of sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what he learned by day he lost by night.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When hired to flatter he would never cease",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till those who’d paid for praises paid for peace.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not wholly miser and but half a knave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He yearned to squander but he lived to save,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And did not, for he could not, cheat the grave.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hic jacet Pixley, scribe and muleteer:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Step lightly, stranger, anywhere but here.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}