Explore "Hell" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The friends who stood about my bed / Looked down upon my face and said: / "God's will be done -- the fellow's dead."
When from my body I was free / I straightway felt myself, ah me! / Sink downward to the life to be.
Full twenty centuries I fell, / And then alighted. "Here you dwell / For aye," a Voice cried -- "this is Hell!"
A landscape lay about my feet, / Where trees were green and flowers sweet.
The climate was devoid of heat.
The sun looked down with gentle beam / Upon the bosom of the stream, / Nor saw I any sign of steam.
The waters by the sky were tinged, / The hills with light and color fringed.
Birds warbled on the wing unsinged.
"Ah, no, this is not Hell," I cried; / "The preachers ne'er so greatly lied.
This is Earth's spirit glorified!
"Good souls do not in Hades dwell, / And, look, there's John P. Irish!" "Well," / The Voice said, "that's what makes it Hell."