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\title{A New Hope}
\date{March 15\textsuperscript{th}, 1893}
\author{Voltairine de Cleyre}
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\section{The New Hope: Voltairine de Cleyre’s Forgotten Poem}


by Robert P. Helms


The celebrated anarchist, freethinker, poet, feminist, and public intellectual Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912) was twenty-six years old in 1893, living in West Philadelphia and at her best game as a writer and activist. She was then contributing occasional letters, articles, and a few poems to the \emph{Boston Investigator}, which in its day (1831–1904) was a well-respected and lively forum for liberals, atheists, and dissident religionists.


Until recently there were no on-line databases for 19\textsuperscript{th} century radical newspapers, and it was not so long ago that the internet didn’t exist. Even now in 2013, the database where I found this old gem is for paying customers only. But even before the internet came into its own, the \emph{Boston Investigator} was not to be found in university libraries. I remember looking for it and having other researchers ask me if I knew where it might be. Now, one can search the full text of the paper’s first 64 years of publication. Thus it seems that in spite of a surge in interest in this author since Paul Avrich’s biography \emph{An American Anarchist: The Life Of Voltairine de Cleyre} (1978) and three new books by or about her in 2004–05, this poem “The New Hope” evidently has not been mentioned or reprinted in the century since the poet’s death, or perhaps not since it first appeared.


I have uncovered a few other lost pieces by Voltairine de Cleyre that involved a bit of detective work, but the present discovery was merely knowing her work and searching a newly available source. Even so, I am very proud to present this forgotten poem in which the great anarchist declares her independence from superstition.

\section{The New Hope}


by V. de Cleyre



\begin{verse}
I stand in the darkness waiting\forcelinebreak
For the light of the truth to shine;\forcelinebreak
The faith that you preach has failed me,\forcelinebreak
And your God is no longer mine.

I have lifted my hands to heaven,\forcelinebreak
And besought him, with many a prayer,\forcelinebreak
To put down the evil doer\forcelinebreak
And destroy the unrighteous snare.

And still did the evil triumph,\forcelinebreak
And still was the right made wrong;\forcelinebreak
Till my trust began to waver,\forcelinebreak
Yet I prayed Him to keep it strong.

I walked in the ways appointed,\forcelinebreak
I treasured the preacher’s words,\forcelinebreak
And cried, aye, cried fast to heaven,\forcelinebreak
For the armor his soldier girds.

Yes, I shut my eyes from seeing,\forcelinebreak
I bound strong chains on my soul,\forcelinebreak
That I might judge of its witness,\forcelinebreak
Might not read the damning scroll.

I said: All is well –God wills it—\forcelinebreak
His wisdom is greater than mine,\forcelinebreak
He sees with the perfect vision,\forcelinebreak
His love is the love divine;

Mine is a human standard,\forcelinebreak
His is so far above\forcelinebreak
That I cannot see, nor feel, nor know\forcelinebreak
The height of that infinite love;

Yet will I trust my infinite father,\forcelinebreak
Yet will I yield to Him\forcelinebreak
Whose glory dwells in the uttermost,\forcelinebreak
Whose brightness makes all else dim.

But tho’ I prayed so loudly,\forcelinebreak
And tho’ I cried very fast,\forcelinebreak
Tho’ my eyes were shut, and my soul was bound,\forcelinebreak
The old faith could not last.

Still round my ears rolled the surge of life,\forcelinebreak
Still rose the awful din\forcelinebreak
Of a world crushed under and trampled down\forcelinebreak
By the feet of the strong who win.

The wild inarticulate anger\forcelinebreak
Of a mad thing driven at bay,\forcelinebreak
Lashed into pain by a million strokes,\forcelinebreak
And seeing no help, no way.

And under, and over, and through it,\forcelinebreak
A menacing undertone,\forcelinebreak
A fearful reverberation\forcelinebreak
Repeating forever my own

Sad prayer for the faith I had not,\forcelinebreak
Came the despairing cry,\forcelinebreak
“Oh God, see you not your children\forcelinebreak
That of hunger and cold they die?”

Now I know “It is finished;”\forcelinebreak
Never more shall I make moan\forcelinebreak
To your God of the stars who feels our prayers,\forcelinebreak
As our tears are felt by the stone.

What the future holds I know not,\forcelinebreak
But this faith it cannot hold,\forcelinebreak
For my thoughts are no longer the thoughts of a child,\forcelinebreak
Nor my hopes the hopes of old.

Help for Earth is not in heaven,\forcelinebreak
Nor the hope of man in God,\forcelinebreak
Nor the truth that shall deliver\forcelinebreak
To be bought with another’s blood.

By our own blood we must purchase,\forcelinebreak
With our own feet the way;\forcelinebreak
When we search out the strength of our own souls\forcelinebreak
No God shall say us “nay.”

Yes, I utter this profanation,\forcelinebreak
I proclaim it loud to the sky,\forcelinebreak
Man is more than the angels,\forcelinebreak
Jehovah is less than I.
\end{verse}




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The Anarchist Library



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Voltairine de Cleyre

A New Hope



March 15\textsuperscript{th}, 1893


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Retrieved on May 25\textsuperscript{th}, 2015 from http:\Slash{}\Slash{}www.deadanarchists.org\Slash{}newhope.html
   
\emph{This poem first appeared in the} Boston Investigator \emph{(Boston, MA) on Wednesday, March 15, 1893, page 3.]}
   



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