Explore "A Critic" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
[Apparently the Cleveland "Leader" is not a good judge of / poetry. -- "The Morning Call".]
That from "you", neighbor! to whose vacant lot / Each rhyming literary knacker scourges / His cart-compelling Pegasus to trot, / As folly, fame or famine smartly urges?
Admonished by the stimulating goad, / How gaily, lo! the spavined crow-bait prances -- / Its cart before it -- eager to unload / The dead-dog sentiments and swill-tub fancies.
Gravely the sweating scavenger pulls out / The tail-board of his curst imagination, / Shoots all his rascal rubbish, and, no doubt, / Thanks Fortune for so good a dumping-station.
To improve your property, the vile cascade / Your thrift invites -- to make a higher level.
In vain: with tons of garbage overlaid, / Your baseless bog sinks slowly to the devil.
"Rubbish may be shot here" -- familiar sign! / I seem to see it in your every column.
You have your wishes, but if I had mine / 'Twould to your editor mean something solemn.