Explore "An Exile" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
'Tis the census enumerator / A-singing all forlorn: / It's ho! for the tall potater, / And ho! for the clustered corn.
The whiffle-tree bends in the breeze and the fine / Large eggs are a-ripening on the vine.
"Some there must be to till the soil / And the widow's weeds keep down.
I wasn't cut out for rural toil / But they "won't" let me live in town! / They 're not so many by two or three, / As they think, but ah! they 're too many for me."
Thus the census man, bowed down with care, / Warbled his wood-note high.
There was blood on his brow and blood in his hair, / But he had no blood in his eye.