{
 "id": "voltairine-de-cleyre/ave-et-vale",
 "title": "Ave et Vale",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Voltairine de Cleyre",
 "poet_slug": "voltairine-de-cleyre",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre",
 "book_slug": "selected-works",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 29,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1914,
  "venue": "Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre (1914)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/selectedworksvo01havegoog",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43098"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/voltairine-de-cleyre_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43098",
   "https://archive.org/details/selectedworksvo01havegoog",
   "https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/voltairine-de-cleyre-collected-poems",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Free_Thought_Magazine/KNOMrVNM4CgC",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Open_Court/711CAQAAMAAJ",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Open_Court/6qzQAAAAMAAJ",
   "https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Worm_Turns/wslHAQAAMAAJ",
   "https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/voltairine-de-cleyre-a-new-hope",
   "https://archive.org/details/BostonInvestigator_1893-03-15"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 120,
  "n_stanzas": 30,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Comrades, what matter the watch-night tells",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That a New Year comes or goes?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What to us are the crashing bells",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That clang out the Century’s close?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What to us is the gala dress?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The whirl of the dancing feet?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The glitter and blare in the laughing press,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And din of the merry street?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Do we not know that our brothers die",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the cold and the dark to-night?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Shelterless faces turned toward the sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will not see the New Year’s light!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Wandering children, lonely, lost,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drift away on the human sea,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "While the price of their lives in a glass is tossed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And drunk in a revelry!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, know we not in their feasting halls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the loud laugh echoes again,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That brick and stone in the mortared walls",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are the bones of murdered men?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Slowly murdered! By day and day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The beauty and strength are reft,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the Man is sapped and sucked away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a Human Rind is left!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A Human Rind, with old, thin hair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And old, thin voice to pray",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For alms in the bitter winter air⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A knife at his heart alway.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And the pure in heart are impure in flesh",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the cost of a little food:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lo, when the Gleaner of Time shall thresh,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let these be accounted good.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For these are they who in bitter blame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eat the bread whose salt is sin;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose bosoms are burned with the scarlet shame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till their hearts are seared within.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The cowardly jests of a hundred years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will be thrown where they pass to-night,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Too callous for hate, and too dry for tears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The saddest of human blight.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Do we forget them, these broken ones,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That our watch to-night is set?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Nay, we smile in the face of the year that comes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because we do not forget.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We do not forget the tramp on the track,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thrust out in the wind-swept waste,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The curses of Man upon his back,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the curse of God in his face.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The stare in the eyes of the buried man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Face down in the fallen mine;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The despair of the child whose bare feet ran",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To tread out the rich man’s wine;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The solemn light in the dying gaze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the babe at the empty breast,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The wax accusation, the sombre glaze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of its frozen and rigid rest;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They are all in the smile that we turn to the east",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To welcome the Century’s dawn;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They are all in our greeting to Night’s high priest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As we bid the Old Year begone.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Begone and have done, and go down and be dead",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deep drowned in your sea of tears!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We smile as you die, for we wait the red",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Morn-gleam of a hundred-years",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That shall see the end of the age-old wrong⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The reapers that have not sown⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The reapers of men with their sickles strong",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who gather, but have not strown.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For the earth shall be his and the fruits thereof",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to him the corn and wine,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who labors the hills with an even love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And knows not “thine and mine.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And the silk shall be to the hand that weaves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pearl to him who dives,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The home to the builder; and all life’s sheaves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the builder of human lives.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And none go blind that another see,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or die that another live;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And none insult with a charity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That is not theirs to give.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For each of his plenty shall freely share",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And take at another’s hand:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Equals breathing the Common Air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And toiling the Common Land.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "A dream? A vision? Aye, what you will;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let it be to you as it seems:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of this Nightmare Real we have our fill;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To-night is for “pleasant dreams.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Dreams that shall waken the hope that sleeps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And knock at each torpid Heart",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till it beat drum taps, and the blood that creeps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a lion’s spring upstart!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For who are we to be bound and drowned",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In this river of human blood?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Who are we to lie in a swound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Half sunk in the river mud?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Are we not they who delve and blast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hammer and build and burn?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Without us not a nail made fast!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not a wheel in the world should turn!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Must we, the Giant, await the grace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That is dealt by the puny hand",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of him who sits in the feasting place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While we, his Blind Jest, stand",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Between the pillars? Nay, not so:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aye, if such thing were true,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Better were Gaza again, to show",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What the giant’s rage may do!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But yet not this: it were wiser far",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To enter the feasting hall",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And say to the Masters, “These things are",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not for you alone, but all.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And this shall be in the Century",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That opes on our eyes to-night;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So here’s to the struggle, if it must be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And to him who fights the fight.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And here’s to the dauntless, jubilant throat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That loud to its Comrade sings,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till over the earth shrills the mustering note,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the World Strike’s signal rings.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}