{
 "id": "voltairine-de-cleyre/out-of-the-darkness",
 "title": "Out of the Darkness",
 "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": 15,
 "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": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "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": 43,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 83,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Who am I? Only one of the commonest common people,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only a worked-out body, a shriveled and withered soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What right have I to sing then? None; and I do not, I cannot.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why ruin the rhythm and rhyme of the great world’s songs with moaning?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know not⁠—nor why whistles must shriek, wheels ceaselessly mutter;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor why all I touch turns to clanging and clashing and discord;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know not;⁠—I know only this⁠—I was born to this, live in it hourly,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Go round with it, hum with it, curse with it, would laugh with it, had it laughter;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is my breath⁠—and that breath goes outward from me in moaning.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O you, up there, I have heard you; I am “God’s image defaced,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“In heaven reward awaits me,” “hereafter I shall be perfect”;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ages you’ve sung that song, but what is it to me, think you?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If you heard down here in the smoke and the smut, in the smear and the offal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the dust, in the mire, in the grime and in the slime, in the hideous darkness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How the wheels turn your song into sounds of horror and loathing and cursing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The offer of lust, the sneer of contempt and acceptance, thieves’ whispers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The laugh of the gambler, the suicide’s gasp, the yell of the drunkard,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If you heard them down here you would cry, “The reward of such is damnation,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If you heard them, I say, your song of “rewarded hereafter” would fail.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You, too, with your science, your titles, your books, and your long explanations",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That tell me how I am come up out of the dust of the cycles,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the sands of the sea, out of the unknown primeval forests⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the growth of the world have become the bud and the promise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the race of the beasts have arisen, proud and triumphant⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, if you knew how your words rumble round in the wheels of labor!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If you knew how my hammering heart beats, “Liar, liar, you lie!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of all buds of the earth we are most blasted and blighted!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What beast of all the beasts is not prouder and freer than we?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, too, who sing in high words of the glory of Man universal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The beauty of sacrifice, debt of the future, the present immortal,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The glory of use, absorption by Death of the being in Being,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, if you knew what jargon it makes, down here, would be quiet.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, is there no one to find or to speak a meaning to me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To me as I am⁠—the hard, the ignorant, withered-souled worker?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To me upon whom God and Science alike have stamped “failure,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To me who know nothing but labor, nothing but sweat, dirt, and sorrow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To me whom you scorn and despise, you up there who sing while I moan?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To me as I am⁠—for me as I am⁠—not dying but living;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not my future, my present! my body, my needs, my desires! Is there no one,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the midst of this rushing of phantoms⁠—of Gods, of Science, of Logic,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of Philosophy, Morals, Religion, Economy⁠—all this that helps not,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All these ghosts at whose altars you worship, these ponderous, marrowless Fictions,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is there no one who thinks, is there nothing to help this dull moaning me?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}