{
 "id": "voltairine-de-cleyre/the-cry-of-the-unfit",
 "title": "The Cry of the Unfit",
 "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": 19,
 "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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The gods have left us, the creeds have crumbled;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There are none to pity and none to care:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Our fellows have crushed us where we have stumbled;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They have made of our bodies a bleeding stair.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Loud rang the bells in the Christmas steeples;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We heard them ring through the bitter morn:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The promise of old to the weary peoples",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came floating sweetly⁠—“Christ is born.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But the words were mocking, sorely mocking,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As we sought the sky through our freezing tears,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We children, who’ve hung the Christmas stocking,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And found it empty two thousand years.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "No, there is naught in the old creed for us;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love and peace are to those who win;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To them the delight of the golden chorus,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To us the hunger and shame and sin.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Why then live on since our lives are fruitless,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Since peace is certain and death is rest;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Since our masters tell us the strife is bootless,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Nature scorns her unwelcome guest?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You who have climbed on our aching bodies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You who have thought because we have toiled,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Priests of the creed of a newer goddess,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Searchers in depths where the Past was foiled.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Speak in the name of the faith that you cherish!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Give us the truth! We have bought it with woe!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Must we forever thus worthlessly perish,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Burned in the desert and lost in the snow?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Trampled, forsaken, foredoomed, and forgotten⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Helplessly tossed like the leaf in the storm?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Bred for the shambles, with curses begotten,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Useless to all save the rotting grave-worm?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Give us some anchor to stay our mad drifting!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Give, for your own sakes! for lo, where our blood,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A red tide to drown you, is steadily lifting!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Help! or you die in the terrible flood!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}