Death & Dying

Loring Pickering

by Ambrose Bierce 1842–c. 1914

From Black Beetles in Amber (1892)

Death & Dying

Here rests a writer, great but not immense,
Born destitute of feeling and of sense.
No power he but o'er his brain desired--
How not to suffer it to be inspired.
Ideas unto him were all unknown,
Proud of the words which, only, were his own.
So unreflecting, so confused his mind,
Torpid in error, indolently blind,
A fever Heaven, to quicken him, applied,
But, rather than revive, the sluggard died.

✦ ✦ ✦

After Pope

MLA

Bierce, Ambrose. “Loring Pickering.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/bierce/416/.

Chicago

Bierce, Ambrose. “Loring Pickering.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/bierce/416/.

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