{
 "id": "voltairine-de-cleyre/the-suicides-defense",
 "title": "The Suicide’s Defense",
 "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": 22,
 "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": 71,
  "n_stanzas": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 5
 },
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "To say in my defense? Defense of what?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Defense to whom? And why defense at all?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have I wronged any? Let that one accuse!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some priest there mutters I “have outraged God”!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let God then try me, and let none dare judge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Himself as fit to put Heaven’s ermine on!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Again I say, let the wronged one accuse.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aye, silence! There is none to answer me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And whom could I, a homeless, friendless tramp,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To whom all doors are shut, all hearts are locked,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All hands withheld⁠—whom could I wrong, indeed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By taking that which benefited none",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And menaced all?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aye, since ye will it so,",
    "indent": 5
   },
   {
    "text": "Know then your risk. But mark, ’tis not defense,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis accusation that I hurl at you.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "See to’t that ye prepare your own defense.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My life, I say, is an eternal threat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To you and yours; and therefore it were well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To have foreborne your unasked services.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And why? Because I hate you! Every drop",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of blood that circles in your plethoric veins",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was wrung from out the gaunt and sapless trunks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of men like me, who in your cursed mills",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were crushed like grapes within the wine-press ground.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To us ye leave the empty skin of life;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heart of it, the sweet of it, ye pour",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To fête your dogs and mistresses withal!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your mistresses! Our daughters! Bought, for bread,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To grace the flesh that once was father’s arms!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yes, I accuse you that ye murdered me!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye killed the Man⁠—and this that speaks to you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is but the beast that ye have made of me!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What! Is it life to creep and crawl and beg,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And slink for shelter where rats congregate?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And for one’s ideal dream of a fat meal?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is it, then, life, to group like pigs in sties,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bury decency in common filth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because, forsooth, your income must be made,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though human flesh rot in your plague-rid dens?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is it, then, life, to wait another’s nod,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For leave to turn yourself to gold for him?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would it be life to you? And was I less",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than you? Was I not born with hopes and dreams",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And pains and passions even as were you?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But these ye have denied. Ye seized the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though it was none of yours, and said: “Hereon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall none rest, walk or work, till first to me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye render tribute!” Every art of man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Born to make light of the burdens of the world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye also seized, and made a tenfold curse",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To crush the man beneath the thing he made.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Houses, machines, and lands⁠—all, all are yours;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And us you do not need. When we ask work",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ye shake your heads. Homes?⁠—Ye evict us. Bread?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Here, officer, this fellow’s begging. Jail’s",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The place for him!” After the stripes, what next?⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poison!⁠—I took it!⁠—Now you say ’twas sin",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To take this life which troubled you so much.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sin to escape insult, starvation, brands",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of felony, inflicted for the crime",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of asking food! Ye hypocrites! Within",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Your secret hearts the sin is that I failed!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because I failed ye judge me to the stripes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the hard toil denied when I was free.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So be it. But beware!⁠—A prison cell’s",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An evil bed to grow morality!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Black swamps breed black miasms; sickly soils",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yield poison fruit; snakes warmed to life will sting.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This time I was content to go alone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Perchance the next I shall not be so kind.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}