Shapes of Clay

by Ambrose Bierce

TO AN ASPIRANT

TO AN ASPIRANT.

What! you a Senator--you, Mike de Young?
Still reeking of the gutter whence you sprung?
Sir, if all Senators were such as you,
Their hands so crimson and so slender, too,--
(Shaped to the pocket for commercial work,
For literary, fitted to the dirk)--
So black their hearts, so lily-white their livers,
The toga's touch would give a man the shivers.