Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre. Voltairine De Cleyre

sweet Mother, take me back,

       Into the bosom from whence I came!

       Take me away from the cruel rack,

       Take me out of the parching flame!

      Fold me again with your beautiful hair,

       Speak to this terrible heaving Sea!

       Over me pour the soothing of prayer,

       The words of the Love-child of Galilee:

      "Peace—be still!" Still—could I but hear!

       Softly—I listen.—O fierce heart, cease!

       Softly—I breathe not—low—in my ear—

       Mother, Mother—I heard you!—Peace!

      Enterprise, Kansas, January, 1891.

HYMN

       Table of Contents

      (This hymn was written at the request of a Christian Science friend who proposed to set it to music. It did not represent my beliefs either then or since, but rather what I wish might be my beliefs, had I not an inexorable capacity for seeing things as they are—a vast scheme of mutual murder, with no justice anywhere, and no God in the soul or out of it.)

      I am at peace—no storm can ever touch me;

       On my clear heights the sunshine only falls;

       Far, far below glides the phantom voice of sorrows,

       In peace-lifted light the Silence only calls.

       Ah, Soul, ascend! The mountain way, up-leading,

       Bears to the heights whereon the Blest have trod!

       Lay down the burden;—stanch the heart's sad bleeding;

       Be ye at peace, for know that Ye are God!

      Not long the way, not far in a dim heaven;

       In the locked Self seek ye the guiding star:

       Clear shine its rays, illumining the shadow;

       There, where God is, there, too, O Souls ye are.

       Ye are at one, and bound in Him forever,

       Ev'n as the wave is bound in the great sea;

       Never to drift beyond, below Him, never!

       Whole as God is, so, even so, are ye.

      Philadelphia, 1892.

YOU AND I

       Table of Contents

      (A reply to "You and I in the Golden Weather," by Dyer D. Lum.)

      You and I, in the sere, brown weather,

       When clouds hang thick in the frowning sky,

       When rain-tears drip on the bloomless heather,

       Unheeding the storm-blasts will walk together,

       And look to each other—You and I.

      You and I, when the clouds are shriven

       To show the cliff-broods of lightnings high;

       When over the ramparts, swift, thunder-driven,

       Rush the bolts of Hate from a Hell-lit Heaven,

       Will smile at each other—You and I.

      You and I, when the bolts are falling,

       The hot air torn with the earth's wild cries,

       Will lean through the darkness where Death is calling,

       Will search through the shadows where Night is palling,

       And find the light in each other's eyes.

      You and I, when black sheets of water

       Drench and tear us and drown our breath,

       Below this laughter of Hell's own daughter,

       Above the smoke of the storm-girt slaughter,

       Will hear each other and gleam at Death.

      You and I, in the gray night dying,

       When over the east-land the dawn-beams fly,

       Down in the groans, in the low, faint crying,

       Down where the thick blood is blackly lying,

       Will reach out our weak arms, You and I.

      You and I, in the cold, white weather,

       When over our corpses the pale lights lie,

       Will rest at last from the dread endeavor,

       Pressed to each other, for parting—never!

       Our dead lips together, You and I.

      You and I, when the years in flowing

       Have left us behind with all things that die,

       With the rot of our bones shall give soil for growing

       The loves of the Future, made sweet for blowing

       By the dew of the kiss of a last good-bye!

      Philadelphia, 1892.

THE TOAST OF DESPAIR

       Table of Contents

      We have cried—and the Gods are silent;

       We have trusted—and been betrayed;

       We have loved—and the fruit was ashes;

       We have given—the gift was weighed.

      We know that the heavens are empty,

       That friendship and love are names;

       That truth is an ashen cinder,

       The end of life's burnt-out flames.

      Vainly and long have we waited,

       Through the night of the human roar,

       For a single song on the harp of Hope,

       Or a ray from a day-lit shore.

      Songs aye come floating, marvelous sweet,

       And bow-dyed flashes gleam;

       But the sweets are Lies, and the weary feet

       Run after a marsh-light beam.

      In the hour of our need the song departs,

       And the sea-moans of sorrow swell;

       The siren mocks with a gurgling laugh

       That is drowned in the deep death-knell.

      The light we chased with our stumbling feet

       As the goal of happier years,

       Swings high and low and vanishes—

       The bow-dyes were of our tears.

      God is a lie, and Faith is a lie,

       And a tenfold lie is Love;

       Life is a problem without a why,

       And never a thing to prove.

      It adds, and subtracts, and multiplies,

       And divides without aim or end;

       Its answers all false, though false-named true—

       Wife, husband, lover, friend.

      We know it now, and we care no more;

       What matters life or death?

       We tiny insects emerge from earth,