{
 "id": "voltairine-de-cleyre/bastard-born",
 "title": "Bastard Born",
 "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": 11,
 "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"
  ]
 },
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  "repo": "standardebooks/voltairine-de-cleyre_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "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": 184,
  "n_stanzas": 46,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 57,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Why do you clothe me with scarlet of shame?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why do you point with your finger of scorn?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What is the crime that you hissingly name",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When you sneer in my ears, “Thou bastard born?”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Am I not as the rest of you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a hope to reach, and a dream to live?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With a soul to suffer, a heart to know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pangs that the thrusts of the heartless give?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I am no monster! Look at me⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Straight in my eyes, that they do not shrink!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Is there aught in them you can see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To merit this hemlock you make me drink?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This poison that scorches my soul like fire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That burns and burns until love is dry,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And I shrivel with hate, as hot as a pyre,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A corpse, while its smoke curls up to the sky?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Will you touch my hand? It is flesh like yours;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perhaps a little more brown and grimed,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For it could not be white while the drawers’ and hewers’,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My brothers, were calloused and darkened and slimed.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet touch it! It is no criminal’s hand!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No children are toiling to keep it fair!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It is free from the curse of the stolen land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is clean of the theft of the sea and air!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It has set no seals to a murderous law,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To sign a bitter, black league with death!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No covenants false do these fingers draw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the name of “The State” to barter Faith!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It bears no stain of the yellow gold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That earth’s wretches give as the cost of heaven!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No priestly garment of silken fold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I wear as the price of their “sins forgiven”!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Still do you shrink! Still I hear the hiss",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Between your teeth, and I feel the scorn",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That flames in your gaze! Well, what is this,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This crime I commit, being “bastard born”?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What! You whisper my “eyes are gray,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The “color of hers,” up there on the hill,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the white stone gleams, and the willow spray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Falls over her grave in the starlight still!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My “hands are shaped like” those quiet hands,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Folded away from their life, their care;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sheen that lies on my short, fair strands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gleams darkly down on her buried hair!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My voice is toned like that silent tone",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That might, if it could, break up through the sod",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With such rebuke as would shame your stone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stirring the grass-roots in their clod!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And my heart-beats thrill to the same strong chords;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the blood that was hers is mine to-day;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the thoughts she loved, I love; and the words",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That meant most to her, to me most say!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She was my mother⁠—I her child!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could ten thousand priests have made us more?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Do you curse the bloom of the heather wild?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do you trample the flowers and cry “impure”?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Do you shun the bird-songs’ silver shower?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Does their music arouse your curling scorn",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That none but God blessed them? The whitest flower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The purest song, were but “bastard born”!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This is my sin⁠—I was born of her!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This is my crime⁠—that I reverence deep!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "God, that her pale corpse may not stir,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Press closer down on her lids⁠—the sleep!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Would you have me hate her? Me, who knew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the gentlest soul in the world looked there,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the gray eyes that pitied you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "E’en while you cursed her? The long brown hair",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "That waved from her forehead, has brushed my cheek,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When her soft lips have drunk up my salt of grief;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the voice, whose echo you hate, would speak",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hush of pity and love’s relief!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And those still hands that are folded now",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have touched my sorrows for years away!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Would you have me question her whence and how",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The love-light streamed from her heart’s deep ray?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Do you question the sun that it gives its gold?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do you scowl at the cloud when it pours its rain",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the fields that were withered and burnt and old",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are fresh and tender and young again?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Do you search the source of the breeze that sweeps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rush of the fever from tortured brain?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Do you ask whence the perfume that round you creeps",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When your soul is wrought to the quick with pain?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She was my Sun, my Dew, my Air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The highest, the purest, the holiest;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Peace⁠—was the shade of her beautiful hair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love⁠—was all that I knew on her breast!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Would you have me forget? Or remembering",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Say that her love had bloomed from Hell?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then Blessed be Hell! And let Heaven sing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Te Deum laudamus,” until it swell",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And ring and roll to the utterest earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the damned are free⁠—since out of sin",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Came the whiteness that shamed all ransomed worth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till God opened the gates, saying “Enter in!”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What! In the face of the witness I bear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To her measureless love and her purity,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Still of your hate would you make me to share,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Despising that she gave life to me?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You would have me stand at her helpless grave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To dig through its earth with a venomed dart!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "This is Honor! and Right! and Brave!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To fling a stone at her pulseless heart!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This is Virtue! To blast the lips",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Speechless beneath the Silence dread!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To lash with Slander’s scorpion whips",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The voiceless, defenseless, helpless dead!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "God! I turn to an adder now!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Back upon you I hurl your scorn!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Bind the scarlet upon your brow!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye it is, who are “bastard born”!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Touch me not! These hands of mine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Despise your fairness⁠—the leper’s white!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Tanned and hardened and black with grime,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are clean beside your souls to-night!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Basely born! ’Tis ye are base!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye who would guerdon holy trust",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With slavish law to a tyrant race,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To sow the earth with the seed of lust.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Base! By Heaven! Prate of peace,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When your garments are red with the stain of wars.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Reeling with passion’s mad release",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By your sickly gaslight damn the stars!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Blurred with wine ye behold the snow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smirched with the foulness that blots within!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "What of purity can ye know,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye tenfold children of Hell and Sin?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ye to judge her! Ye to cast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The stone of wrath from your house of glass!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Know ye the Law, that ye dare to blast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bell of gold with your clanging brass?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Know ye the harvest the reapers reap",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who drop in the furrow the seed of scorn?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of this anguish ye harrow deep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ripens the sentence: “Ye, bastard born!”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ay, sin-begotten, hear the curse;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not mine⁠—not hers⁠—but the fatal Law!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“Who bids one suffer, shall suffer worse;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who scourges, himself shall be scourgèd raw!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“For the thoughts ye think, and the deeds ye do,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Move on, and on, till the flood is high,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the dread dam bursts, and the waves roar through,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hurling a cataract dirge to the sky!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“To-night ye are deaf to the beggar’s prayer;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To-morrow the thieves shall batter your wall!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye shall feel the weight of a starved child’s care",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When your warders under the Mob’s feet fall!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“ ’Tis the roar of the whirlwind ye invoke",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When ye scatter the wind of your brother’s moans;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis the red of your hate on your own head broke,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the blood of the murdered spatters the stones!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Hark ye! Out of the reeking slums,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thick with the fetid stench of crime,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Boiling up through their sickening scums,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bubbles that burst through the crimson wine,",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Voices burst⁠—with terrible sound,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crying the truth your dull souls ne’er saw!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We are your sentence! The wheel turns round!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bastard spawn of your bastard law!”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "This is bastard: That Man should say",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How Love shall love, and how Life shall live!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Setting a tablet to groove God’s way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Measuring how the divine shall give!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O, Evil Hearts! Ye have maddened me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I should interpret the voice of God!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Quiet! Quiet! O angered Sea!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quiet! I go to her blessed sod!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Mother, Mother, I come to you!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down in your grasses I press my face!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Under the kiss of their cold, pure dew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I may dream that I lie in the dear old place!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Mother, sweet Mother, take me back,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into the bosom from whence I came!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Take me away from the cruel rack,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take me out of the parching flame!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Fold me again with your beautiful hair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Speak to this terrible heaving Sea!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Over me pour the soothing of prayer,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The words of the Love-child of Galilee:",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Peace⁠—be still!” Still⁠—could I but hear!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Softly⁠—I listen.⁠—O fierce heart, cease!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Softly⁠—I breathe not⁠—low⁠—in my ear⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mother, Mother⁠—I heard you!⁠—Peace!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}