Poems Voltairine de Cleyre

“During the spring of 1911, at the moment of her greatest despair,” writes her biographer Paul Avrich, “Voltairine's spirits were lifted by the swelling revolution in Mexico, and especially by the activities of Ricardo Flores Magon, the foremost Mexican anarchist of the time, whose Partido Liberal Mexicano played an important part in rousing workers and peasants against the Diaz dictatorship.” Voltairine went on to throw herself into activism on behalf of the Mexican cause. It gave her a new lease on life, according to Avrich. “During the last year of her life, Voltairine was 'filled with the spirit of direct action' “[Avrich quoting Goldman]. This poem, dedicated to her Mexican comrades, was published in Regeneracion six months before her death. It was the last poem she wrote.

Written in red their protest stands,
For the Gods of the World to see;
On the dooming wall their bodiless hands
Have blazoned “Upharsin,&rdqup; and flaring brands
Illumine the message: “Seize the lands!
Open the prisons and make men free!”
Flame out the living words of the dead
Written—in—red.
Gods of the World! Their mouths are dumb!
Your guns have spoken and they are dust.
But the shrouded Living, whose hearts were numb,
Have felt the beat of a wakening drum
Within them sounding–the Dead Men's tongue—
Calling: “Smite off the ancient rust!”
Have beheld “Resurrexit,” the word of the Dead,
Written&mdasah;in—red.
Bear it aloft, 0 roaring flame!
Skyward aloft, where all may see.
Slaves of the World! Our cause is the same;
One is the immemorial shame;
One is the struggle, and in One name—
Manhood—we battle to set men free.
“Uncurse us the Land!” burn the words of the Dead,
Written—in—red.

[Note: “Upharsin” refers to the line from the Old Testament Book of Daniel: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,” from whence comes the phrase “the handwriting on the wall.”]

Wollstonecraft was one of VDC's heros. Often considered the founder of feminism, Wollstonecraft's unwillingness to marry or live with her lover William Godwin (until her pregnancy) impressed VDC. The scandal surrounding Wllstonecraft, to say nothing of her radically feminist views, made Wollstonecraft as unpopular in her day as VDC was in hers. VDC saw a kindred spirit.

The dust of a hundred years
Is on thy breast,
And thy day and thy night of tears
Are centurine rest.
Thou to whom joy was dumb,
Life a broken rhyme,
Lo, thy smiling time is come,
And our weeping time.
Thou who hadst sponge and myrrh
And a bitter cross,
Smile, for the day is here
That we know our loss;—
Loss of thine undone deed,
Thy unfinished song,
Th' unspoken word for our need,
Th' unrighted wrong;
Smile, for we weep, we weep,
For the unsoothed pain,
The unbound wound burned deep,
That we might gain.
Mother of sorrowful eyes
In the dead old days,
Mother of many sighs,
Of pain-shod ways;
Mother of resolute feet
Through all the thorns,
Mother soul-strong, soul-sweet,—
Lo, after storms
Have broken and beat thy dust
For a hundred years,
Thy memory is made just, And the just man hears.
Thy children kneel and repeat: "Though dust be dust,
Though sod and coffin and sheet
And moth and rust
Have folded and molded and pressed,
Yet they cannot kill;
In the heart of the world at rest
She liveth still."

(After an incarceration for six long years in Joliet state prison for an act of which they were entirely innocent, namely, the throwing of the Haymarket bomb, in Chicago, May 4th, 1886, Oscar Neebe, Michael Schwab, and Samuel Fielden, were liberated by Gov. Altgeld, who thus sacrificed his political career to an act of justice.)

There was a tableau! Liberty's clear light
Shone never on a braver scene than that.
Here was a prison, there a Man, who sat
High in the halls of State! Beyond, the might
Of Ignorance and mobs whose hireling Press
Yells at their bidding like the slaver's hounds,
Ready with coarse caprice to curse or bless,
To make or unmake rulers!—Lo, there sounds
A grating of the doors! And three poor men
Helpless and hated, having nought to give,
Come from their long-sealed tomb,
look up, and live,
And thank this Man that they are free again.
And He—to all the world this Man dares say:
"Curse as you will! I have been just this day."