Ambrose Bierce

24 June 1842 - 26 December 1913 / Horse Cave Creek, Ohio

Sires And Sons

Wild wanton Luxury lays waste the land
With difficulty tilled by Thrift's hard hand!
Then dies the State!-and, in its carcass found,
The millionaires, all maggot-like, abound.
Alas! was it for this that Warren died,
And Arnold sold himself to t' other side,
Stark piled at Bennington his British dead,
And Gates at Camden, Lee at Monmouth, fled?
For this that Perry did the foeman fleece,
And Hull surrender to preserve the peace?
Degenerate countrymen, renounce, I pray,
The slothful ease, the luxury, the gay
And gallant trappings of this idle life,
And be more fit for one another's wife.
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