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Ambrose Bierce - Polyphemus
Work rating: Low

Twas a sick young man with a face ungay
And an eye that was all alone;
And he shook his head in a hopeless way
As he sat on a roadside stone.


"O, ailing youth, what untoward fate
Has made the sun to set
On your mirth and eye?" "I`m constrained to state
I`m an ex-West Point cadet.


"`Twas at cannon-practice I got my hurt
And my present frame of mind;
For the gun went off with a double spurt—
Before it, and also behind!"


"How sad, how sad, that a fine young chap,
When studying how to kill,
Should meet with so terrible a mishap
Precluding eventual skill.


"Ah, woful to think that a weapon made
For mowing down the foe
Should commit so dreadful an escapade
As to turn about to mow!"


No more he heeded while I condoled:
He was wandering in his mind;
His lonely eye unconsidered rolled,
And his views he thus defined:


"`Twas O for a breach of the peace—`twas O
For an international brawl!
But a piece of the breech—ah no, ah no,
I didn`t want that at all."
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