{
 "id": "george-macdonald/a-christmas-prayer",
 "title": "A Christmas Prayer",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "George MacDonald",
 "poet_slug": "george-macdonald",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Volume II",
 "book_slug": "poetical-works-vol-2",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 83,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1893,
  "venue": "The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Volume II (1893)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1893 collected Poetical Works, which is the printing this text is and not the poem's first appearance. MacDonald gathered and revised for it work published from 1855 onward, and it arranges the poems by its own editorial grouping rather than by the volumes they came from, so which earlier book or magazine printed this poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poeticalworksge00macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/metadata/poeticalworksge00macdgoog",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9984"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/george-macdonald_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1953",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8949",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9543",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9984",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10578",
   "https://archive.org/details/bookofstrifeinfo00macd",
   "https://archive.org/details/discipleandothe02macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/discipleandothe02macdgoog",
   "https://archive.org/details/rampolli00macd",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102955776",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011821572"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 32,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Loving looks the large-eyed cow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Loving stares the long-eared ass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At Heaven’s glory in the grass!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Child, with added human birth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come to bring the child of earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glad repentance, tearful mirth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a seat beside the hearth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At the Father’s knee⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make us peaceful as thy cow;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make us patient as thine ass;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make us quiet as thou art now;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make us strong as thou wilt be.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make us always know and see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We are his as well as thou.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}