{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/hymn-for-boys-voices",
 "title": "Hymn (For Boy’s Voices)",
 "ordinal": "XXXI",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "C. S. Lewis",
 "poet_slug": "c-s-lewis",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spirits in Bondage",
 "book_slug": "spirits-in-bondage",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 27,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1919,
  "venue": "Spirits in Bondage (1919)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/c-s-lewis_poetry",
  "file": "spirits-in-bondage-chapter-31.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003",
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101865124"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 10,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 36,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "All the things magicians do",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could be done by me and you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Freely, if we only knew.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Human children every day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could play at games the faeries play",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If they were but shown the way.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Every man a God would be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Laughing through eternity",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If as God’s his eyes could see.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All the wizardries of God⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slaying matter with a nod,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Charming spirits with his rod,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With the singing of his voice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Making lonely lands rejoice,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaving us no will nor choice,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Drawing headlong me and you",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As the piping Orpheus drew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man and beast the mountains through,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "By the sweetness of his horn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Calling us from lands forlorn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nearer to the widening morn⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All that loveliness of power",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Could be man’s peculiar dower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Even mine, this very hour;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We should reach the Hidden Land",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And grow immortal out of hand,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If we could but understand!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We could revel day and night",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In all power and all delight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If we learn to think aright.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}