Explore "To One Detested" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Sir, you're a veteran, revealed / In history and fable / As warrior since you took the field, / Defeating Abel.
As Commissary later (or / If not, in every cottage / The tale is) you contracted for / A mess of pottage.
In civil life you were, we read / (And our respect increases) / A man of peace -- a man, indeed, / Of thirty pieces.
To paying taxes when you turned / Your mind, or what you call so, / A wide celebrity you earned -- / Saphira also.
In every age, by various names, / You've won renown in story, / But on your present record flames / A greater glory.
Cain, Esau, and Iscariot, too, / And Ananias, likewise, / Each had peculiar powers, but who / Could lie as Mike lies?