{
 "id": "voltairine-de-cleyre/the-road-builders",
 "title": "The Road Builders",
 "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": 27,
 "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": {
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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": 25,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I saw them toiling in the blistering sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their dull, dark faces leaning toward the stone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their knotted fingers grasping the rude tools,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their rounded shoulders narrowing in their chest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sweat drops dripping in great painful beads.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I saw one fall, his forehead on the rock,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The helpless hand still clutching at the spade,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The slack mouth full of earth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And he was dead.",
    "indent": 9
   },
   {
    "text": "His comrades gently turned his face, until",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The fierce sun glittered hard upon his eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wide open, staring at the cruel sky.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The blood yet ran upon the jagged stone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But it was ended. He was quite, quite dead:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Driven to death beneath the burning sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Driven to death upon the road he built.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "He was no “hero,” he; a poor, black man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Taking “the will of God” and asking naught;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think of him thus, when next your horse’s feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Strike out the flint spark from the gleaming road;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think that for this, this common thing, The Road,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A human creature died; ’tis a blood gift,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To an o’erreaching world that does not thank.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ignorant, mean and soulless was he? Well⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Still human; and you drive upon his corpse.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}