{
 "id": "voltairine-de-cleyre/the-toast-of-despair",
 "title": "The Toast of Despair",
 "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": 14,
 "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": 52,
  "n_stanzas": 13,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "We have cried⁠—and the Gods are silent;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We have trusted⁠—and been betrayed;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We have loved⁠—and the fruit was ashes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We have given⁠—the gift was weighed.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We know that the heavens are empty,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That friendship and love are names;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That truth is an ashen cinder,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The end of life’s burnt-out flames.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Vainly and long have we waited,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the night of the human roar,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For a single song on the harp of Hope,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or a ray from a day-lit shore.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Songs aye come floating, marvelous sweet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bow-dyed flashes gleam;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But the sweets are Lies, and the weary feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Run after a marsh-light beam.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In the hour of our need the song departs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sea-moans of sorrow swell;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The siren mocks with a gurgling laugh",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That is drowned in the deep death-knell.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The light we chased with our stumbling feet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the goal of happier years,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Swings high and low and vanishes⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The bow-dyes were of our tears.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "God is a lie, and Faith is a lie,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a tenfold lie is Love;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Life is a problem without a why,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never a thing to prove.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It adds, and subtracts, and multiplies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And divides without aim or end;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Its answers all false, though false-named true⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wife, husband, lover, friend.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We know it now, and we care no more;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What matters life or death?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We tiny insects emerge from earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suffer, and yield our breath.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Like ants we crawl on our brief sand-hill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dreaming of “mighty things,”⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lo, they crunch, like shells in the ocean’s wrath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the rush of Time’s awful wings.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The sun smiles gold, and the planets white,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a billion stars smile, still;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet, fierce as we, each wheels towards death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cannot stay his will.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then build, ye fools, your mighty things,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That Time shall set at naught;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Grow warm with the song the sweet Lie sings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the false bow your tears have wrought.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For us, a truce to Gods, loves, and hopes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a pledge to fire and wave;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A swifter whirl to the dance of death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a loud huzza for the Grave!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}