Polyphemus poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry

Twas a sick young man with a face ungay

And an eye that was all alone;

And he shook his head in a hopeless way

As he sat on a roadside stone.

“O, ailing youth, what untoward fate

Has made the sun to set

On your mirth and eye?” “I’m constrained to state

I’m an ex-West Point cadet.

“‘Twas at cannon-practice I got my hurt

And my present frame of mind;

For the gun went off with a double spurt-

Before it, and also behind!”

“How sad, how sad, that a fine young chap,

When studying how to kill,

Should meet with so terrible a mishap

Precluding eventual skill.

“Ah, woful to think that a weapon made

For mowing down the foe

Should commit so dreadful an escapade

As to turn about to mow!”

No more he heeded while I condoled:

He was wandering in his mind;

His lonely eye unconsidered rolled,

And his views he thus defined:

“‘Twas O for a breach of the peace-’twas O

For an international brawl!

But a piece of the breech-ah no, ah no,

I didn’t want that at all.”