Explore "Bereavement" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A Countess (so they tell the tale) / Who dwelt of old in Arno's vale, / Where ladies, even of high degree, / Know more of love than of A.B.C, / Came once with a prodigious bribe / Unto the learned village scribe, / That most discreet and honest man / Who wrote for all the lover clan, / Nor e'er a secret had betrayed -- / Save when inadequately paid. / "Write me," she sobbed -- "I pray thee do -- / A book about the Prince di Giu -- / A book of poetry in praise / Of all his works and all his ways; / The godlike grace of his address, / His more than woman's tenderness, / His courage stern and lack of guile, / The loves that wantoned in his smile.
So great he was, so rich and kind, / I'll not within a fortnight find / His equal as a lover. O, / My God! I shall be drowned in woe!"