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1842–1914

CALIFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES

Ambrose Bierce

Assembled in the parlor Of the place of last resort, The smiler and the snarler And the guests of every sort —

The elocution chap With rhetoric on tap; The mimic and the funny dog; The social sponge; the money-hog;

Vulgarian and dude; And the prude; The adiposing dame With pimply face aflame;

The kitten-playful virgin — Vergin’ on to fifty years; The solemn-looking sturgeon Of a firm of auctioneers;

The widower flirtatious; The widow all too gracious; The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath. One assassin picks the banjo, and another picks his teeth.

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CALIFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES · Ambrose Bierce · Poetry Cove