{
 "id": "voltairine-de-cleyre/to-my-mother",
 "title": "To My Mother",
 "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": 5,
 "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": 17,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Some souls there are which never live their life;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some suns there are which never pierce their cloud;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some hearts there are which cup their perfume in,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yield no incense to the outer air.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cloud-shrouded, flower-cupped heart: such is thine own:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So dost thou live with all thy brightness hid;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So dost thou dwell with all thy perfume close;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rich in thy treasured wealth, aye, rich indeed⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they are wrong who say thou “dost not feel.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I⁠—I need blue air and opened bloom;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To keep my music means that it must die;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And when the thrill, the joy, the love of life is gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I, too, am dead⁠—a corpse, though not entombed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let me live then⁠—but a while⁠—the gloom soon comes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The flower closes and the petals shut;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through them the perfume slips out, like a soul⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The long, still sleep of death⁠—and then the Grave.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}