Read "Couplets" by Ambrose Bierce online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Intended for Inscription on a Sword Presented to Colonel / Cutting of the National Guard of California.
I am for Cutting. I'm a blade / Designed for use at dress parade.
My gleaming length, when I display / Peace rules the land with gentle sway; / But when the war-dogs bare their teeth / Go seek me in the modest sheath.
I am for Cutting. Not for me / The task of setting nations free.
Let soulless blades take human life, / My softer metal shuns the strife.
The annual review is mine, / When gorgeous shopmen sweat and shine, / And Biddy, tip-toe on the pave, / Adores the cobble-trotting brave.
I am for Cutting. 'Tis not mine / To hew amain the hostile line; / Not mine all pitiless to spread / The plain with tumuli of dead.
My grander duty lies afar / From haunts of the insane hussar, / Where charging horse and struggling foot / Are grimed alike with cannon-soot.
When Loveliness and Valor meet / Beneath the trees to dance, and eat, / And sing, and much beside, behold / My golden glories all unfold! / There formidably are displayed / The useful horrors of my blade / In time of feast and dance and ballad, / I am for cutting chicken salad.