Shapes of Clay

by Ambrose Bierce

PHILOSOPHER BIMM

PHILOSOPHER BIMM.

Republicans think Jonas Bimm
A Democrat gone mad,
And Democrats consider him
Republican and bad.

The Tough reviles him as a Dude
And gives it him right hot;
The Dude condemns his crassitude
And calls him _sans culottes._

Derided as an Anglophile
By Anglophobes, forsooth,
As Anglophobe he feels, the while,
The Anglophilic tooth.

The Churchman calls him Atheist;
The Atheists, rough-shod,
Have ridden o'er him long and hissed
"The wretch believes in God!"

The Saints whom clergymen we call
Would kill him if they could;
The Sinners (scientists and all)
Complain that he is good.

All men deplore the difference
Between themselves and him,
And all devise expedients
For paining Jonas Bimm.

I too, with wild demoniac glee,
Would put out both his eyes;
For Mr. Bimm appears to me
Insufferably wise!