Explore "Llewellen Powell" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Villain, when the word is spoken, / And your chains at last are broken / When the gibbet's chilling shade / Ceases darkly to enfold you, / And the angel who enrolled you / As a master of the trade / Of assassination sadly / Blots the record he has made, / And your name and title paints / In the calendar of saints; / When the devils, dancing madly / In the midmost Hell, are very / Multitudinously merry -- / Then beware, beware, beware! -- / Nemesis is everywhere! / You shall hear her at your back, / And, your hunted visage turning, / Fancy that her eyes are burning / Like a tiger's on your track! / You shall hear her in the breeze / Whispering to summer trees.
You shall hear her calling, calling / To your spirit through the storm / When the giant billows form / And the splintered lightning, falling / Down the heights of Heaven, appalling, / Splendors all the tossing seas! / On your bed at night reclining, / Stars into your chamber shining / As they roll around the Pole, / None their purposes divining, / Shall appear to search your soul, / And to gild the mark of Cain / That burns into your tortured brain! / And the dead man's eyes shall ever / Meet your own wherever you, / Desperate, shall turn you to, / And you shall escape them never!