Ambrose Bierce

  • Creation

    God dreamed—the suns sprang flaming into place,
    And sailing worlds with many a venturous race.
    He woke—His smile alone illumined space.

  • Presentiment

    With saintly grace and reverent tread
        She walked among the graves with me;
        Her every footfall seemed to be
    A benediction on the dead.

    The guardian spirit of the place
        She seemed, and I some ghost forlorn,
        Surprised by the untimely...

  • Montefiore

    I saw—’t was in a dream, the other night—
    A man whose hair with age was thin and white;
      One hundred years had bettered by his birth,
    And still his step was firm, his eye was bright.

    Before him and about him pressed a crowd.
    Each head in reverence was...

  • Another Way

    I lay in silence, dead. A woman came
        And laid a rose upon my breast, and said,
    “May God be merciful.” She spoke my name,
        And added, “It is strange to think him dead.

    “He loved me well enough, but ’t was his way
        To speak it lightly.” Then,...

  • The Bride

    “you know, my friends, with what a brave carouse
    I made a second marriage in my house,—
      Divorced old barren Reason from my bed
    And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse.”

    So sang the Lord of Poets. In a gleam
    Of light that made her like an angel seem...

  • The Death of Grant

    Father! whose hard and cruel law
        Is part of thy compassion’s plan,
        Thy works presumptuously we scan
    For what the prophets say they saw.

    Unbidden still, the awful slope
        Walling us in, we climb to gain
        Assurance of the shining plain...