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the AMBROSE BIERCE site |
Ambrose Bierce may have loved his wife Mollie (Mary Ellen Day). Mollie died on April 27, 1905, a year after she filed for divorce, and many years after their separation. Perhaps Bierce was thinking about Mollie when he wrote his most beautiful poem, one with a sentimentality unusual for a misanthrope who once claimed that the decorative skull on his desk contained the ashes of a critic (or, depending on the anecdote, his departed son).
Mollie
by Ambrose Bierce
- I lay in silence, dead. A woman came
- And laid a rose upon my breast and said:
- "May God be merciful." She spoke my name,
- And added: "It is strange to think him dead.
- "He loved me well enough, but 'twas his way
- To speak it lightly." Then, beneath her breath:
- "Besides" -- I knew what further she would say
- But then a footfall broke my dream of death.
- To-day the words are mine. I lay the rose
- Upon her breast, and speak her name, and deem
- It strange indeed that she is dead. God knows
- I had more pleasure in the other dream
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the AMBROSE BIERCE site |