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Home > Authors Index > Browse all available works of Ambrose Bierce > Text of Haec Fabula Docet

A poem by Ambrose Bierce

Haec Fabula Docet

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Title:     Haec Fabula Docet
Author: Ambrose Bierce [More Titles by Bierce]

A rat who'd gorged a box of bane
And suffered an internal pain,
Came from his hole to die (the label
Required it if the rat were able)
And found outside his habitat
A limpid stream. Of bane and rat
'T was all unconscious; in the sun
It ran and prattled just for fun.
Keen to allay his inward throes,
The beast immersed his filthy nose
And drank--then, bloated by the stream,
And filled with superheated steam,
Exploded with a rascal smell,
Remarking, as his fragments fell
Astonished in the brook: "I'm thinking
This water's damned unwholesome drinking!"





[The end]
Ambrose Bierce's poem: Haec Fabula Docet

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