{
 "id": "voltairine-de-cleyre/the-christians-faith",
 "title": "The Christian’s Faith",
 "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": 3,
 "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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  "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": 166,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
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  "longest_line_chars": 56,
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  [
   {
    "text": "We contrast light and darkness⁠—light of God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And darkness from the Stygian shades of hell;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fumes of the pit infernal rising up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have clouded o’er the brain, laid reason low;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For when the eye looks on fair Nature’s face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sees not God, then is she blind indeed!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No night so starless, even in its gloom,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As his who wanders on without a hope",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that great, just Hereafter all must meet!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No heart so dull, so heavy, and so void,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As that which lives for this chill world alone!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No soul so groveling, unaspiring, base,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As that which, here, forgets the afterhere!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And still through all the darkness and the gloom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its voice will not be stilled, its hopes be quenched;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It cries, it screams, it struggles in its chains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bleeds upon the altar of the mind⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unwilling sacrifice to thought misled.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The soul that knows no God can know no peace.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thus speaketh light, the herald of our God!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that far dawn where shone each rolling world",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "First lit with shadowed splendor of the stars,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In that fair morning when Creation sang",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its praise of God, e’er yet it dreamed of sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pure and untainted as the source of life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man dwelt in Eden. There no shadows came,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No question of the goodness of our Lord,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until the prince of darkness tempted man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, yielding to the newly born desire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He fell! Sank in the mire of ignorance!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Man, who put himself in Satan’s power,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since then has wandered far in devious ways,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seeing but now and then a glimpse of light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till Christ is come, the living Son of God!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far in his heavenly home he viewed the world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saw all her sadness and her sufferings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Saw all her woes, her struggles, and her search",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For some path leading up from out the Night.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within his breast the fount of tears was touched;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His great heart swelled with pity, and he said:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Father, I go to save the world from sin.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah! What power but a soul divinely clad",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In purity, in holiness and love,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could leave a home of happiness and light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For this lost World of suffering and death?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He came: the World tossed groaning in her sleep;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He touched her brow: the nightmare passed away;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He soothed her heart, red with the stain of sin;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And she forgot her guilt in penitence;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She washed the ruby out with pearls of tears.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He came, he suffered, and he died for us;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He felt the bitterest woes a soul can feel;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He probed the darkest depths of human grief;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He sounded all the deeps and shoals of pain;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was cursed for all his love; thanked with the cross,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereon he hung nailed, bleeding, glorified,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the last smoke of holocaust divine.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Ah! This was all two thousand years ago!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Two thousand years ago, and still he cries,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With voice sweet calling through the distant dark:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“O souls that labor, struggling in your pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come unto me, and I will give you rest!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For every woe of yours, and every smart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, too, have felt:⁠—the mockery, the shame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sneer, the scoffing lip, the hate, the lust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The greed of gain, the jealousy of man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unstinted have been measured out to me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know them all, I feel them all with you!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I have known the pangs of poverty,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cry of hunger and the weary heart",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of childhood burdened with the weight of age!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O sufferers, ye all are mine to love!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pulse-beats of my heart go out with you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And every drop of agony that drips",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From my nailed hands adown this bitter cross,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cries out, ‘O God! accept the sacrifice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ope the gates of heaven to the world!’",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye vermin of the garret, who do creep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your weary lives away within its walls;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye children of the cellar, who behold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sweet, pale light, strained through the lothsome air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And doled to you in tid-bits, as a thing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Too precious for your use; ye rats in mines,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who knaw within the black and somber pits",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To seek poor living for your little ones;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye women who stitch out your lonely lives,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unmindful whether sun or stars keep watch;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye slaves of wheels; ye worms that bite the dust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where pride and scorn have ground you ’neath the heel;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye Toilers of the earth, ye weary ones⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know your sufferings, I feel your woes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My peace I give you; in a little while",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pain will all be over, and the grave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will sweetly close above your folded hands!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And then?⁠—Ah, Death, no conqueror art thou!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I have loosed thy chains; I have unbarred",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The gates of heaven! In my Father’s house",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of many mansions I prepare a place;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And rest is there for every heart that toils!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, all ye sick and wounded ones who grieve",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the lost health that ne’er may come again;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye who do toss upon a couch of pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon whose brow disease has laid his hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Within whose eyes the dull and heavy sight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Burns like a taper burning very low,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon whose lips the purple fever-kiss",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rests his hot breath, and dries the sickened palms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scorches the flesh and e’en the very air;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye who do grope along without the light;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye who do stumble, halting on your way;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye whom the world despises as unclean;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Know that the death-free soul has none of these:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The unbound spirit goes unto its God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pure, whole, and beauteous as newly born!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, all ye mourners, weeping for the dead;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your tears I gather as the grateful rain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which rises from the sea and falls again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To nurse the withering flowers from its touch;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No drop is ever lost! They fall again",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To nurse the blossoms of some other heart!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I would not dry one single dew of grief:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sorrow-freighted lashes which bespeak",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The broken heart and soul are dear to me;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I mourn with them, and mourning so I find",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The grief-bowed soul with weeping oft grows light!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But yet ye mourn for them not without hope:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond the woes and sorrows of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As stars still shine though clouds obscure the sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The friends ye mourn as lost immortal live;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And ye shall meet and know their souls again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through death transfigured, through love glorified!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, all ye patient waiters for reward,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Scorned and despised by those who know not worth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know your merit and I give you hope;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For in my Father’s law is justice found.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See how the seed-germ, toiling underground,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Waits patiently for time to burst its shell;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And by and by the golden sunlight warms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The dark, cold earth; the germ begins to shoot.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And upward trends until two small green leaves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unfold and wave and drink the pure, fresh air.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The blossoms come and go with Summer’s breath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Autumn brings the fruit-time in her hand.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So ye, who patient watch and wait and hope,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Trusting the sun may bring the blossoms out,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall reap the fruited labor by and by.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am your friend; I wait and hope with you,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rejoice with you when the hard vict’ry’s won!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And still for you, O prisoners in cells,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I hold the dearest gifts of penitence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forgiveness and charity and hope!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I stretch the hands of mercy through the bars;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "White hands⁠—like doves they bring the branch of peace!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Repent, believe⁠—and I will expiate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon this bitter cross all your deep guilt!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, take my gift, accept my sacrifice!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I ask no other thing but only⁠—trust!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, all ye martyrs, bleeding in your chains;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, all ye souls that live for others’ good;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, all ye mourners, all ye guilty ones,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all ye suffering ones, come unto me!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye are all my brothers, all my sisters, all!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as I love one, so I love you all.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Accept my love, accept my sacrifice;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make not my cross more bitter than it is",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By shrinking from the peace I bring to you!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}