<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=342652" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Merciful Governor</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Standing within the triple wall of Hell,<br>And flattening his nose against a grate<br>Behind whose brazen bars he'd had to dwell<br>A thousand million ages to that date,<br>Stoneman bewailed his melancholy fate,<br>And his big tear-drops, boiling as they fell,<br>Had worn between his feet, the record mentions,<br>A deep depression in the 'good intentions.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Imperfectly by memory taught how<br>For prayer in Hell is a lost art-he prayed,<br>Uplifting his incinerated brow<br>And flaming hands in supplication's aid.<br>'O grant,' he cried, 'my torment may be stayed<br>In mercy, some short breathing spell allow!<br>If one good deed I did before my ghosting,<br>Spare me and give Delmas a double roasting.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Breathing a holy harmony in Hell,<br>Down through the appalling clamors of the place,<br>Charming them all to willing concord, fell<br>A Voice ineffable and full of grace:<br>'Because of all the law-defying race<br>One single malefactor of the cell<br>Thou didst not free from his incarceration,<br>Take thou ten thousand years of condonation.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Back from their fastenings began to shoot<br>The rusted bolts; with dreadful roar, the gate<br>Laboriously turned; and, black with soot,<br>The extinguished spirit passed that awful strait,<br>And as he legged it into space, elate,<br>Muttered: 'Yes, I remember that galoot<br>I'd signed his pardon, ready to allot it,<br>But stuck it in my desk and quite forgot it.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Ambrose+Bierce">Ambrose Bierce</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=342652" data-title="A Merciful Governor de Ambrose Bierce" data-description="Standing within the triple wall of Hell, And flattening his nose against a grate Behind whose brazen bars he'd had to dwell A thousand million ages to that date, Stoneman bewailed his melancholy fate, And his big tear-drops, boiling as they fell, ..."></div> </div> </div>

solid border dashed border dotted border double border groove border ridge border inset border outset border no border blue green red purple cyan gold silver black