Read "On a Proposed Crematory" by Ambrose Bierce online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
When a fair bridge is builded o'er the gulf / Between two cities, some ambitious fool, / Hot for distinction, pleads for earliest leave / To push his clumsy feet upon the span, / That men in after years may single him, / Saying: "Behold the fool who first went o'er!" / So be it when, as now the promise is, / Next summer sees the edifice complete / Which some do name a crematorium, / Within the vantage of whose greater maw's / Quicker digestion we shall cheat the worm / And circumvent the handed mole who loves, / With tunnel, adit, drift and roomy stope, / To mine our mortal parts in all their dips / And spurs and angles. Let the fool stand forth / To link his name with this fair enterprise, / As first decarcassed by the flame.
And if / With rival greedings for the fiery fame / They push in clamoring multitudes, or if / With unaccustomed modesty they all / Hold off, being something loth to qualify, / Let me select the fittest for the rite.