Ambrose Bierce is chiefly remembered as the author of The Devil's Dictionary, and few of us think of him as a poet. It is true that The New Decalogue appears in a few American anthologies and makes an effective recitation piece, but his other verse remains virtually unknown. There does not appear to be very much of it, and undoubtedly Bierce was essentially a prose writer yet there is as powerful, caustic tone in his occasional verse which makes it, at times, comparable with Pope or Swift. His version of the Dies Irae, for instance, has an epigrammatic concision and a bitter wit which make you wonder why it is not better known.