Explore "The Night of Election" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
"O venerable patriot, I pray / Stand not here coatless; at the break of day / We'll know the grand result -- and even now / The eastern sky is faintly touched with gray.
"It ill befits thine age's hoary crown -- / This rude environment of rogue and clown, / Who, as the lying bulletins appear, / With drunken cries incarnadine the town.
"But if with noble zeal you stay to note / The outcome of your patriotic vote / For Blaine, or Cleveland, and your native land, / Take -- and God bless you! -- take my overcoat."
"Done, pard -- and mighty white of you. And now / guess the country'll keep the trail somehow.
I aint allowed to vote, the Warden said, / But whacked my coat up on old Stanislow."