Explore "In High Life" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Sir Impycu Lackland, from over the sea, / Has led to the altar Miss Bloatie Bondee.
The wedding took place at the Church of St. Blare; / The fashion, the rank and the wealth were all there -- / No person was absent of all whom one meets.
Lord Mammon himself bowed them into their seats, / While good Sir John Satan attended the door / And Sexton Beelzebub managed the floor, / Respectfully keeping each dog to its rug, / Preserving the peace between poodle and pug.
Twelve bridesmaids escorted the bride up the aisle / To blush in her blush and to smile in her smile; / Twelve groomsmen supported the eminent groom / To scowl in his scowl and to gloom in his gloom.
The rites were performed by the hand and the lip / Of his Grace the Diocesan, Billingham Pip, / Assisted by three able-bodied divines.
He prayed and they grunted, he read, they made signs.
Such fashion, such beauty, such dressing, such grace / Were ne'er before seen in that heavenly place! / That night, full of gin, and all blazing inside, / Sir Impycu blackened the eyes of his bride.