{
 "id": "voltairine-de-cleyre/the-gods-and-the-people",
 "title": "The Gods and the People",
 "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": 17,
 "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": [
   "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": 180,
  "n_stanzas": 45,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 48,
  "max_indent": 0
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "What have you done, O skies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the millions should kneel to you?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Why should they lift wet eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grateful with human dew?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Why should they clasp their hands,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bow at thy shrines, O heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thanking thy high commands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the mercies that thou hast given?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What have those mercies been,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O thou, who art called the Good,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who trod through a world of sin,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stood where the felon stood?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What is that wondrous peace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vouchsafed to the child of dust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For whom all doubt shall cease",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the light of thy perfect trust?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How hast Thou heard their prayers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smoking up from the bleeding sod,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who, crushed by their weight of cares,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cried up to Thee, Most High God?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Where the swamps of Humanity sicken,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Read the answer, in dumb, white scars!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You, Skies, gave the sore and the stricken",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The light of your far-off stars!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The children who plead are driven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shelterless, through the street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Receiving the mercy of Heaven",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hard-frozen in glittering sleet!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The women who prayed for pity,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who called on the saving Name,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the walks of your merciless city",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are crying the rent of shame.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The starving, who gazed on the plenty",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In which they might not share,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have died in their hunger, rent by",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The anguish of unheard prayer!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The weary who plead for remission,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For a moment, only, release,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have sunk, with unheeded petition:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This is the Christ-pledged Peace.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "These are the mercies of Heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These are the answers of God,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the prayers of the agony-shriven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the paths where the millions plod!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The silent scorn of the sightless!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The callous ear of the deaf!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wrath of might to the mightless!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The shroud, and the mourning sheaf!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Light⁠—to behold their squalor!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Breath⁠—to draw in life’s pain!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Voices to plead and call for",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heaven’s help!⁠—hearts to bleed⁠—in vain!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What have you done, O Church,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the weary should bless your name?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should come with faith’s holy torch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To light up your altar’d fane?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Why should they kiss the folds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the garment of your High Priest?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or bow to the chalice that holds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wine of your Sacred Feast?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Have you blown out the breath of their sighs?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you strengthened the weak, the ill?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you wiped the dark tears from their eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bade their sobbings be still?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Have you touched, have you known, have you felt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you bent and softly smiled",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the face of the woman, who dwelt",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In lewdness⁠—to feed her child?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Have you heard the cry in the night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Going up from the outraged heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Masked from the social sight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the cloak that but angered the smart?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Have you heard the children’s moan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the light of the skies denied?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Answer, O Walls of Stone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the name of your Crucified!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Out of the clay of their heart-break,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the red dew of its sod,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You have mortar’d your brick, for Christ’s sake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And reared a palace to God!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Your painters have dipped their brushes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the tears and the blood of the race,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whom, living, your dark frown crushes⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And limned⁠—a dead Savior’s face!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You have seized, in the name of God, the",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Child’s crust from famine’s dole;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You have taken the price of its body",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sung a mass for its soul!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You have smiled on the man, who, deceiving,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Paid exemption to ease your wrath!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You have cursed the poor fool who believed him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though her body lay prone in your path!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You have laid the seal on the lip!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You have bid us to be content!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To bow ’neath our master’s whip,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And give thanks for the scourge⁠—“heav’n sent.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "These, O Church, are your thanks;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "These are the fruits without flaw,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That flow from the chosen ranks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who keep in your perfect law;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Doors hard-locked on the homeless!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stained glass windows for bread!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the living, the law of dumbness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the law of need, for⁠—the dead!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Better the dead, who, not needing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Go down to the vaults of the Earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than the living whose hearts lie bleeding,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crushed by you at their very birth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What have you done, O State,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the toilers should shout your ways;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should light up the fires of their hate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If a “traitor” should dare dispraise?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How do you guard the trust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the people repose in you?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Do you keep to the law of the just,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hold to the changeless true?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What do you mean when you say",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“The home of the free and brave”?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "How free are your people, pray?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have you no such thing as a slave?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "What are the lauded “rights,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Broad-sealed, by your Sovereign Grace?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What are the love-feeding sights",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You yield to your subject race?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The rights!⁠—Ah! the right to toil,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That another, idle, may reap;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The right to make fruitful the soil",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a meagre pittance to keep!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The right of a woman to own",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her body, spotlessly pure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And starve in the street⁠—alone!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The right of the wronged⁠—to endure!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The right of the slave⁠—to his yoke!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The right of the hungry⁠—to pray!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The right of the toiler⁠—to vote",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the master who buys his day!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You have sold the sun and the air!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You have dealt in the price of blood!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You have taken the lion’s share",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While the lion is fierce for food!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You have laid the load of the strong",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the helpless, the young, the weak!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You have trod out the purple of wrong;⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beware where its wrath shall wreak!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Let the Voice of the People be heard!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "O⁠⸺” You strangled it with your rope!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Denied the last dying word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While your Trap and your Gallows spoke!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But a thousand voices rise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the words of the martyr fell;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The seed springs fast to the Skies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Watered deep from that bloody well!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Hark! Low down you will hear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The storm in the underground!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Listen, Tyrants, and fear!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quake at that muffled sound!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Heavens, that mocked our dust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smile on, in your pitiless blue!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent as you are to us,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So silent are we to you!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Churches that scourged our brains!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Priests that locked fast our hands!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We planted the torch in your chains:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now gather the burning brands!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“States that have given us law,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When we asked for the right to earn bread!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Sword that Damocles saw",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By a hair swings over your head!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“What ye have sown ye shall reap:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Teardrops, and Blood, and Hate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gaunt gather before your Seat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And knock at your palace gate!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“There are murderers on your Thrones!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There are thieves in your Justice-halls!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "White Leprosy cancers their stones,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And gnaws at their worm-eaten walls!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“And the Hand of Belshazzar’s Feast",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Writes over, in flaming light:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thought’s kingdom no more to the Priest;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor the Law of Right unto Might.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}