Explore "Mendax" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
High Lord of Liars, Pickering, to thee / Let meaner mortals bend the subject knee! / Thine is mendacity's imperial crown, / Alike by genius, action and renown.
No man, since words could set a cheek aflame / E'er lied so greatly with so little shame! / O bad old man, must thy remaining years / Be passed in leading idiots by their ears -- / Thine own (which Justice, if she ruled the roast / Would fasten to the penitential post) / Still wagging sympathetically -- hung / the same rocking-bar that bears thy tongue?