Black Beetles in Amber

by Ambrose Bierce

ON THE PLATFORM

ON THE PLATFORM

When Dr. Bill Bartlett stepped out of the hum
Of Mammon's distracting and wearisome strife
To stand and deliver a lecture on "Some
Conditions of Intellectual Life,"
I cursed the offender who gave him the hall
To lecture on any conditions at all!

But he rose with a fire divine in his eye,
Haranguing with endless abundance of breath,
Till I slept; and I dreamed of a gibbet reared high,
And Dr. Bill Bartlett was dressing for death.
And I thought in my dream: "These conditions, no doubt,
Are bad for the life he was talking about."

So I cried (pray remember this all was a dream):
"Get off of the platform!--it isn't the kind!"
But he fell through the trap, with a jerk at the beam,
And wiggled his toes to unburden his mind.
And, O, so bewitching the thoughts he advanced,
That I clung to his ankles, attentive, entranced!