Explore "The Shafter Shafted" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Well, James McMillan Shafter, you're a Judge -- / At least you were when last I knew of you; / And if the people since have made you budge / I did not notice it. I've much to do / Without endeavoring to follow, through / The miserable squabbles, dust and smudge, / The fate of even the veteran contenders / Who fight with flying colors and suspenders.
Being a Judge, 'tis natural and wrong / That you should villify the public press -- / Save while you are a candidate. That song / Is easy quite to sing, and I confess / It wins applause from hearers who have less / Of spiritual graces than belong / To audiences of another kidney -- / Men, for example, like Sir Philip Sidney.
Newspapers, so you say, don't always treat / The Judges with respect. That may be so / And still no harm done, for I swear I'll eat / My legs and in the long hereafter go, / Snake-like, upon my belly if you'll show / All Judges are respectable and sweet.
For some of them are rogues and the world's laughter's / Directed at some others, for they're Shafters.