Out of the Darkness
By Voltairine de Cleyre
(Poet and essayist. Died 1912.)
Who am I? Only one of the commonest common people,
Only a worked-out body, a shriveled and withered soul;
What right have I to sing, then? None; and I do not, I cannot.
Why ruin the rhythm and rhyme of the great world’s songs with moaning?
I know not—nor why whistles must shriek, wheels ceaselessly mutter;
Nor why all I touch turns to clashing and clanging and discord;
I know not; I know only this,—I was born to this, live in it hourly,