Explore "The Piute" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Unbeautiful is the Piute! / Howe'er bedecked with bravery, / His person is unsavory -- / Of soap he's destitute.
He multiplies upon the earth / In spite of all admonishing; / All censure his astonishing / And versatile unworth.
Upon the Reservation wide / We give for his inhabiting / He goes a-jackass rabbiting / To furnish his inside.
The hopper singing in the grass / He seizes with avidity: / He loves its tart acidity, / And gobbles all that pass.
He penetrates the spider's veil, / Industriously pillages / The toads' defenseless villages, / And shadows home the snail.
He lightly runs to earth the quaint / Red worm and, deftly troweling, / He makes it with his boweling / Familiarly acquaint.
He tracks the pine-nut to its lair, / Surrounds it with celerity, / Regards it with asperity -- / Smiles, and it isn't there!
I wish he'd open up a grin / Of adequate vivacity / And carrying capacity / To take his Agent in.