Explore "A Silurian Holiday" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
'Tis Master Fitch, the editor; / He takes an holiday.
Now wherefore, venerable sir, / So resolutely gay?
He lifts his head, he laughs aloud, / Odzounds! 'tis drear to see! / "Because the Boodle-Scribbler crowd / Will soon be far from me.
"Full many a year I've striven well / To freeze the caitiffs out / By making this good town a Hell, / But still they hang about.
"They maken mouths and eke they grin / At the dollar limit game; / And they are holpen in that sin / By many a wicked dame.
"In sylvan bowers hence I'll dwell / My bruisèd mind to ease.
Farewell, ye urban scenes, farewell! / Hail, unfamiliar trees!"
Forth Master Fitch did bravely hie, / And all the country folk / Besought him that he come not nigh / The deadly poison oak!
He smiled a cheerful smile (the day / Was straightway overcast) -- / The poison oak along his way / Was blighted as he passed!