Explore "A Merciful Governor" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Standing within the triple wall of Hell, / And flattening his nose against a grate / Behind whose brazen bars he'd had to dwell / A thousand million ages to that date, / Stoneman bewailed his melancholy fate, / And his big tear-drops, boiling as they fell, / Had worn between his feet, the record mentions, / A deep depression in the "good intentions."
Imperfectly by memory taught how -- / For prayer in Hell is a lost art -- he prayed, / Uplifting his incinerated brow / And flaming hands in supplication's aid. / "O grant," he cried, "my torment may be stayed -- / In mercy, some short breathing spell allow! / If one good deed I did before my ghosting, / Spare me and give Delmas a double roasting."