{
 "id": "george-macdonald/a-dream-within-a-dream",
 "title": "A Dream Within a Dream",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "George MacDonald",
 "poet_slug": "george-macdonald",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "A Hidden Life and Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "a-hidden-life-and-other-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1864,
  "venue": "A Hidden Life and Other Poems (1864)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1864 volume A Hidden Life and Other Poems, which is the printing this text derives from rather than the poem's first appearance: the same poems stand at the same page numbers in MacDonald's Poems (London, 1857), so an earlier printing is known and 1864 is not it. Whether the 1857 volume or a periodical printed the poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_N7tfAAAAMAAJ",
   "https://archive.org/details/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/metadata/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft"
  ]
 },
 "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": 627,
  "n_stanzas": 16,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 58,
  "max_indent": 1
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Young, as the day’s first-born Titanic brood,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lifting their foreheads jubilant to heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rose the great mountains on my opening dream.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And yet the aged peace of countless years",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Reposed on every crag and precipice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Outfacing ruggedly the storms that swept",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far overhead the sheltered furrow-vales;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which smiled abroad in green as the clouds broke",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drifting adown the tide of the wind-waves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till shattered on the mountain rocks. Oh! still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cold and hard to look upon, like men",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who do stern deeds in times of turbulence,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quell the hail-rattle with their granite brows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And let the thunder burst and pass away⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They too did gather round sky-dwelling peaks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The trailing garments of the travelling sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which he had lifted from his ocean-bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And swept along his road. They rent them down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In scattering showers upon the trees and grass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In noontide rains with heavy ringing drops,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or in still twilight moisture tenderly.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And from their sides were born the gladsome streams;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some creeping gently out in tiny springs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As they were just created, scarce a foot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the hill’s surface, in the matted roots",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of plants, whose green betrays the secret birth;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some hurrying forth from caverns deep and dark,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upfilling to the brim a basin huge,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thick covered with soft moss, greening the wave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As evermore it welled over the edge",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the rocks below in boiling heaps;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fit basin for a demi-god at morn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Waking amid the crags, to lave his limbs,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then stride, Hyperion, o’er sun-paven peaks.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And down the hill-side sped the fresh-born wave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now hid from sight in arched caverns cold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now arrowing slantwise down the terraced steep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now springing like a child from step to step",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the rough water-stair; until it found",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A deep-hewn passage for its slower course,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Guiding it down to lowliness and rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Betwixt wet walls of darkness, darker yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With pine trees lining all their sides like hair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or as their own straight needles clothe their boughs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until at length in broader light it ran,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With more articulate sounds amid the stones,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the slight shadow of the maiden birch,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the stream-loving willow; and ere long",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Great blossoming trees dropt flowers upon its breast;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chiefly the crimson-spotted, cream-white flowers,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heaped up in cones amid cone-drooping leaves;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Green hanging leaf-cones, towering white flower-cones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the great cone-fashioned chestnut tree.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each made a tiny ripple where it fell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The trembling pleasure of the smiling wave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which bore it then, in slow funereal course,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down to the outspread sunny sheen, where lies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lake uplooking to the far-off snow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its mother still, though now so far away;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Feeding it still with long descending lines",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of shining, speeding streams, that gather peace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In journeying to the rest of that still lake",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now lying sleepy in the warm red sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which says its dear goodnight, and goeth down.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All pale, and withered, and disconsolate,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The moon is looking on impatiently;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For ’twixt the shining tent-roof of the day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sun-deluged lake, for mirror-floor,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her thin pale lamping is too sadly grey",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To shoot, in silver-barbed, white-plumed arrows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cold maiden splendours on the flashing fish:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wait for thy empire Night, day-weary moon!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thou shalt lord it in one realm at least,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where two souls walk a single Paradise.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take to thee courage, for the sun is gone;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His praisers, the glad birds, have hid their heads;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Long, ghost-like forms of trees lie on the grass;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All things are clothed in an obscuring light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fusing their outline in a dreamy mass;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some faint, dim shadows from thy beauty fall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the clear lake which melts them half away⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shine faster, stronger, O reviving moon!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Burn up, O lamp of Earth, hung high in Heaven!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And through a warm thin summer mist she shines,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A silver setting to the diamond stars;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the dark boat cleaveth a glittering way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where the one steady beauty of the moon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Makes many changing beauties on the wave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Broken by jewel-dropping oars, which drive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The boat, as human impulses the soul;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While, like the sovereign will, the helm’s firm law",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Directs the whither of the onward force.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At length midway he leaves the swaying oars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Half floating in the blue gulf underneath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And on a load of gathered flowers reclines,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Leaving the boat to any air that blows,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His soul to any pulse from the unseen heart.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Straight from the helm a white hand gleaming flits,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And settles on his face, and nestles there,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pale, night-belated butterfly, to sleep.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For on her knees his head lies satisfied;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And upward, downward, dark eyes look and rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Finding their home in likeness. Lifting then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her hair upon her white arm heavily,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The overflowing of her beauteousness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her hand that cannot trespass, singles out",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Some of the curls that stray across her lap;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And mingling dark locks in the pallid light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She asks him which is darker of the twain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which his, which hers, and laugheth like a lute.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But now her hair, an unvexed cataract,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Falls dark and heavy round his upturned face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with a heaven shuts out the shallow sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A heaven profound, the home of two black stars;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till, tired with gazing, face to face they lie,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Suspended, with closed eyelids, in the night;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their bodies bathed in conscious sleepiness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While o’er their souls creeps every rippling breath",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the night-gambols of the moth-winged wind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Flitting a handbreadth, folding up its wings,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its dreamy wings, then spreading them anew,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with an unfelt gliding, like the years,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wafting them to a water-lily bed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose shield-like leaves and chalice-bearing arms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hold back the boat from the slow-sloping shore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far as a child might shoot with his toy-bow.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There the long drooping grass drooped to the wave;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, ever as the moth-wind lit thereon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A small-leafed tree, whose roots were always cool,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dipped one low bow, with many sister-leaves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the water’s face with a low plash,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lifting and dipping yet and yet again;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And aye the water-drops rained from the leaves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With music-laughter as they found their home.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And from the woods came blossom-fragrance, faint,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or full, like rising, falling harmonies;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Luxuriance of life, which overflows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In scents ethereal on the ocean air;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Each breathing on the rest the blessedness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of its peculiar being, filled with good",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till its cup runneth over with delight:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They drank the mingled odours as they lay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The air in which the sensuous being breathes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till summer-sleep fell on their hearts and eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The night was mild and innocent of ill;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas but a sleeping day that breathed low,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And babbled in its sleep. The moon at length",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grew sleepy too. Her level glances crept",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through sleeping branches to their curtained eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As down the steep bank of the west she slid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Slowly and slowly But alas! alas!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The awful time ’twixt moondown and sunrise!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is a ghostly time. A low thick fog",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Steamed up and swathed the trees, and overwhelmed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The floating couch with pall on pall of grey.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sky was desolate, dull, and meaningless.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The blazing hues of the last sunset eve,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the pale magic moonshine that had made",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The common, strange⁠—all were swept clean away;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The earth around, the great sky over, were",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like a deserted theatre, tomb-dumb;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lights long dead; the first sick grey of morn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oozing through rents in the slow-mouldering curtain;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sweet sounds fled away for evermore;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nought left, except a creeping chill, a sense",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if dead deeds were strown upon the stage,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if dead bodies simulated life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And spoke dead words without informing thought.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A horror, as of power without a soul,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dark, undefined, and mighty unto ill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Jarred through the earth and through the vault-like air.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And on the sleepers fell a wondrous dream,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That dured till sunrise, filling all the cells",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Remotest of the throbbing heart and brain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as I watched them, ever and anon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The quivering limb and half-unclosèd eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Witnessed of torture scarce endured, and yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Endured; for still the dream had mastery,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And held them in a helplessness supine;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till, by degrees, the labouring breath grew calm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save frequent murmured sighs; and o’er each face",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stole radiant sadness, and a hopeful grief;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the convulsive motion passed away.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Upon their faces, reading them, I gazed⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Reading them earnestly, like wondrous book⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When suddenly the vapours of the dream",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rose and enveloped me, and through my soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Passed with possession; will fell fast asleep.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And through the portals of the spirit-land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon whose frontiers time and space grow dumb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Quenched like a cloud that all the roaring wind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drives not beyond the mountain top, I went,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And entering, beheld them in their dream.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their world inwrapt me for the time as mine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And what befell them there, I saw, and tell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It was a drizzly morning where I stood.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The cloud had sunk, and filled with fold on fold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The chimneyed city; so the smoke rose not,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But spread diluted in the cloud, and fell",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A black precipitate on miry streets,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where dim grey faces vision-like went by,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But half-awake, half satisfied with sleep.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Slave engines had begun their ceaseless growl",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of labour. Iron bands and huge stone blocks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That held them to their task, strained, shook, until",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The city trembled. Those pale-visaged forms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were hastening on to feed their groaning strength",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With labour to the full. Look! there they come,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poor amid poverty; she with her gown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Drawn over her meek head; he trying much,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But fruitless half, to shield her from the rain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They enter the wide gates, amid the jar,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And clash, and shudder of the awful force",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That, conquering force, still vibrates on, as if",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With an excess of power, hungry for work.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With differing strength to different tasks they part,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To be the soul of knowledge unto strength;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For man has eked his body out with wheels,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cranks, and belts, and levers, pinions, screws⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One body all, pervaded still with life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From man the maker’s will. ’Mid keen-eyed men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thin featured and exact, his part is found;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hers where the dusk air shines with lustrous eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And there they laboured through the murky day,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Whose air was livid mist, their only breath;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Foul floating dust of swift revolving wheels",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And feathery spoil of fast contorted threads",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Making a sultry chaos in the sun.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until at length slow swelled the welcome dark,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A dull Lethean heaving tide of death,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up from the caves of Night to make an end;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And filling every corner of the place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Choked in its waves the clanking of the looms.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Earth put on her sleeping dress, and took",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her children home into its bosom-folds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And nursed them as a mother-ghost might sit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With her neglected darlings in the dark.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So with dim satisfaction in their hearts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though with tired feet and aching head, they went,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Parting the clinging fog to find their home.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was a dreary place. Unfinished walls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Far drearier than ruins overspread",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With long-worn sweet forgetfulness, amidst",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Earth-heaps and bricks, rain-pools and ugliness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Rose up around, banishing further yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Earth, with its spring-time, young-mother smile,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From children’s eyes that had forgot to play.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But though the house was dull and wrapt in fog,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It yet awoke to life, yea, cheerfulness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When darkness oped a fire-eye in the grate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the dim candle’s smoky flame revealed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A room which could not be all desolate,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Being a temple, proven by the signs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seen in the ancient place. For here was light;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And blazing fire with darkness on its skirts;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bread; and pure water, ready to make clean,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beside a chest of holiday attire;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in the twilight edges of the light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A book scarce seen; and for the wondrous veil,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those human forms, behind which lay concealed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Holy of Holies, God’s own secret place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lowly human heart wherein He dwells.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And by the table-altar they sat down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To eat their Eucharist, God feeding them:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their food was Love, made visible in Form⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Incarnate Love in food. For he to whom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A common meal can be no Eucharist,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who thanks for food and strength, not for the love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That made cold water for its blessedness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wine for gladness’ sake, has yet to learn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heart-delight of inmost thankfulness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For innermost reception. Then they sat",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Resting with silence, the soul’s inward sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which feedeth it with strength; till gradually",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They grew aware of light, that overcame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The light within, and through the dingy blind,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cast from the window-frame, two shadow-glooms",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That made a cross of darkness on the white,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dark messenger of light itself unseen.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The woman rose, and half she put aside",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The veil that hid the whole of glorious night;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lo! a wind had mowed the earth-sprung fog;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lo! on high the white exultant moon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From clear blue window curtained all with white,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Greeted them, at their shadowy window low,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With quiet smile; for two things made her glad:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One that she saw the glory of the sun;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For while the earth lay all athirst for light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She drank the fountain-waves. The other joy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sprung from herself: she fought the darkness well,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thinning the great cone-shadow of the earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Paling its ebon hue with radiant showers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon its sloping side. The woman said,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With hopeful look: “To-morrow will be bright",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With sunshine for our holiday⁠—to-morrow⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Think! we shall see the green fields in the sun.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So with hearts hoping for a simple joy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet high withal, being no less than the sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They laid them down in nightly death that waits",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Patiently for the day. That sun was high",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When they awoke at length. The moon, low down,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had almost vanished, clothed upon with light;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And night was swallowed up of day. In haste,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Chiding their weariness that leagued with sleep,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They, having clothed themselves in clean attire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By the low door, stooping with priestly hearts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Entered God’s vision-room, his wonder-world.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "One side the street, the windows all were moons",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To light the other that in shadow lay.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The path was almost dry; the wind asleep.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And down the sunny side a woman came",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a red cloak that made the whole street glad⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fit clothing, though she was so feeble and old;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For when they stopped and asked her how she fared,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She said with cheerful words, and smile that owed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "None of its sweetness to an ivory lining:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“I’m always better in the open air.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Dear heart!” said they, “how freely she will breathe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the open air of heaven!” She stood in the morn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like a belated autumn-flower in spring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dazed by the rushing of the new-born life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up the earth’s winding cavern-stairs to see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through window-buds the calling, waking sun.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or as in dreams we meet the ghost of one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beloved in youth, who walketh with few words,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And they are of the past. Yet, joy to her!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She too from earthy grave was climbing up",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unto the spirit-windows high and far,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She the new life for a celestial spring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Answering the light that shineth evermore.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With hopeful sadness thus they passed along",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Dissolving streets towards the smiles of spring,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of which green visions gleamed and glided by,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Across far-narrowing avenues of brick:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The ripples only of her laughter float",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through the low winding caverns of the town;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet not a stone upon the paven street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But shareth in the impulse of her joy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heaven’s life that thrills anew through the outworn earth;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Descending like the angel that did stir",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bethesda’s pool, and made the sleepy wave",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pulse with quick healing through the withered limb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In joyous pangs. By an unfinished street,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forth came they on a wide and level space;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Green fields lay side by side, and hedgerow trees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Stood here and there as waiting for some good.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But no calm river meditated through",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The weary flat to the less level sea;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No forest trees on pillared stems and boughs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bent in great Gothic arches, bore aloft",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A cloudy temple-roof of tremulous leaves;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No clear line where the kissing lips of sky",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And earth meet undulating, but a haze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That hides⁠—oh, if it hid wild waves! alas!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It hides but fields, it hides but fields and trees!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save eastward, where a few hills, far away,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Came forth in the sun, or drew back when the clouds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Went over them, dissolving them in shade.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the life-robe of earth was beautiful,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As all most common things are loveliest;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A forest of green waving fairy trees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That carpeted the earth for lowly feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bending unto their tread, lowliest of all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Earth’s lowly children born for ministering",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unto the heavenly stranger, stately man;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That he, by subtle service from all kinds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From every breeze and every bounding wave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From night-sky cavernous with heaps of storm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And from the hill rejoicing in the sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Might grow a humble, lowly child of God;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lowly, as knowing his high parentage;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Humble, because all beauties wait on him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like lady-servants ministering for love.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he that hath not rock, and hill, and stream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must learn to look for other beauty near;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To know the face of ocean solitudes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The darkness dashed with glory, and the shades",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wind-fretted, and the mingled tints upthrown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From shallow bed, or raining from the sky.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And he that hath not ocean, and dwells low,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not hill-befriended, if his eyes have ceased",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To drink enjoyment from the billowy grass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And from the road-side flower (like one who dwells",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With homely features round him every day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And so takes refuge in the loving eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which are their heaven, the dwelling-place of light),",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Must straightway lift his eyes unto the heavens,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like God’s great palette, where His artist hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Never can strike the brush, but beauty wakes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vast sweepy comet-curves, that net the soul",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In pleasure; endless sky-stairs; patient clouds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "White till they blush at the sun’s goodnight kiss;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And filmy pallours, and great mountain crags.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But beyond all, absorbing all the rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lies the great heaven, the expression of deep space,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Foreshortened to a vaulted dome of blue;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Infinite, crowded in a single glance,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where yet the eye descends depth within depth;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like mystery of Truth, clothed in high form,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Evasive, spiritual, no limiting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But something that denies an end, and yet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Can be beheld by wondering human eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "There looking up, one well may feel how vain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To search for God in this vast wilderness!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For over him would arch void depth for ever;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor ever would he find a God or Heaven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though lifting wings were his to soar abroad",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through boundless heights of space; or eyes to dive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To microscopic depths: he would come back,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And say, “There is no God;” and sit and weep;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till in his heart a child’s voice woke and cried,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Father! my Father!” Then the face of God",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Breaks forth with eyes, everywhere, suddenly",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And not a space of blue, nor floating cloud,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor grassy vale, nor distant purple height,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But, trembling with a presence all divine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Says, “Here I am, my child.” Gazing awhile,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They let the lesson of the sky sink deep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into their hearts; withdrawing then their eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They knew the Earth again. And as they went,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Oft in the changing heavens, those distant hills",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shone clear upon the horizon. Then awoke",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A strange and unknown longing in their souls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if for something loved in years gone by,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And vanished in its beauty and its love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So long, that it retained no name or form,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lay on childhood’s verge, all but forgot,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wrapt in the enchanted rose-mists of that land:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As if amidst those hills were wooded dells,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Summer, and gentle winds, and odours free,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deep sleeping waters, gorgeous flowers, and birds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pure winged throats. But here, all things around",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were in their spring. The very light that lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the grass seemed new-born like the grass,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sprung with it from the earth. The very stones",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looked warm. The brown ploughed earth seemed swelling up,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Filled like a sponge with sunbeams, which lay still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nestling unseen, and broodingly, and warm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In every little nest, corner, or crack,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherein might hide a blind and sleepy seed,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Waiting the touch of penetrative life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To wake, and grow, and beautify the earth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The mossy stems and boughs, where yet no life",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Exuberant overflowed in buds and leaves,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were clothed in golden splendours, interwoven",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With many shadows from the branches bare.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And through their tops the west wind rushing went,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Calling aloud the sleeping sap within:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The thrill passed downwards from the roots in air",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To the roots tremulous in the embracing ground.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And though no buds with little dots of light",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sparkled the darkness of the hedgerow twigs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Softening, expanding in the warm light-bath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seemed the dry smoky bark. Thus in the fields",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They spent their holiday. And when the sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was near the going down, they turned them home",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With strengthened hearts. For they were filled with light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And with the spring; and, like the bees, went back",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To their dark house, laden with blessed sights,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With gladsome sounds home to their treasure-cave;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where henceforth sudden gleams of spring would pass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thorough the four-walled darkness of the room;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And sounds of spring-time whisper trembling by,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though stony streets with iron echoed round.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as they crossed a field, they came by chance",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon a place where once a home had been;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fragments of ruined walls, half-overgrown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With moss, for even stones had their green robe.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It had been a small cottage, with a plot",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of garden-ground in front, mapped out with walks",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now scarce discernible, but that the grass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was thinner, the ground harder to the foot:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The place was simply shadowed with an old",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Almost erased human carefulness.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Close by the ruined wall, where once had been",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The door dividing it from the great world,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Making it home, a single snowdrop grew.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas the sole remnant of a family",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of flowers that in this garden once had dwelt,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Vanished with all their hues of glowing life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Save one too white for death. And as its form",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Arose within the brain, a feeling sprung",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up in their souls, new, white, and delicate;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A waiting, longing, patient hopefulness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The snowdrop of the heart. The heavenly child,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pale with the earthly cold, hung its meek head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enduring all, and so victorious;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Summer’s earnest in the waking Earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The spirit’s in the heart. I love thee, flower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a love almost human, tenderly;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Spring’s first child, yea, thine, my hoping heart!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon thy inner leaves and in thy heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Enough of green to tell thou know’st the grass;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In thy white mind remembering lowly friends;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But most I love thee for that little stain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of earth on thy transfigured radiancy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which thou hast lifted with thee from thy grave,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The soiling of thy garments on thy road,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Travelling forth into the light and air,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heaven of thy pure rest. Some gentle rain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will surely wash thee white, and send the earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Back to the place of earth; but now it signs",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thee child of earth, of human birth as we.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With careful hands uprooting it, they bore",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The little plant a willing captive home;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Willing to enter dark abodes, secure",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In its own tale of light. As once of old,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bearing all heaven in words of promising,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Angel of the Annunciation came,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It carried all the spring into that house;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A pot of mould its only tie to Earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its heaven an ell of blue ’twixt chimney-tops,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its world henceforth that little, low-ceiled room,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Symbol and child of spring, it took its place",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Midst all those types, to be a type with them,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of what so many feel, not knowing it;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hidden springtime that is drawing nigh.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And henceforth, when the shadow of the cross",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will enter, clothed in moonlight, still and dark,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The flower will nestle at its foot till day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Pale, drooping, heart-content. To rest they went.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all night long the snowdrop glimmered white",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid the dark, unconscious and unseen.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Before the sun had crowned his eastern hill",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "With its world-diadem, they woke. I looked",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the windows of the inner dream,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And saw the edge of the sun’s glory rise",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Eastward behind the hills, the lake-cup’s rim.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And as it came, it sucked up in itself,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As deeds drink words, or daylight candle-flame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That other sun rising to light the dream.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They lay awake and thoughtful, comforted",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With yesterday which nested in their hearts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet haunted with the sound of grinding wheels.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And as they lay and looked into the room,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "It wavered, changed, dissolved beneath the sun,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which mingled both the mornings in their eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the true conquered, and the unreal passed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No walls, but woods bathed in a level sun;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No ceiling, but the vestal sky of morn;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No bed, but flowers floating ’mid floating leaves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On water which grew audible as they stirred",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lifted up their heads. And a low wind",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That flowed from out the west, washed from their eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The last films of the dream. And they sat up,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Silent for one long cool delicious breath,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gazing upon each other lost and found,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a dumb ecstasy, new, undefined.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Followed a long embrace, and then the oars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Broke up their prison-bands. And through the woods",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They slowly went, beneath a firmament",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of boughs, and clouded leaves, filmy and pale",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the sunshine, but shadowy on the grass.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And roving odours met them on their way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sun-quickened odours, which the fog had slain.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And their green sky had many a blossom-moon,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And constellations thick with starry flowers.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And deep and still were all the woods, except",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the Memnonian, glory-stricken birds;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And golden beetles ’mid the shadowy roots,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Green goblins of the grass, and mining mice;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And on the leaves the fairy butterflies,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or doubting in the air, scarlet and blue.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The divine depth of summer clasped the Earth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But ’twixt their hearts and summer’s perfectness",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Came a dividing thought that seemed to say:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Ye wear strange looks.” Did summer speak, or they?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They said within: “We know that ye are fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bright flowers; but ye shine far away, as in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A land of other thoughts. Alas! alas!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where shall we find the snowdrop-bell half-blown?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What shall we do? we feel the throbbing spring",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bursting in new and unexpressive thoughts;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our hearts are swelling like a tied-up bud,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And summer crushes them with too much light.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Action is bubbling up within our souls;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The woods oppress us more than stony streets;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That was the life indeed; this is the dream;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Summer is too complete for growing hearts;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They need a broken season, and a land",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With shadows pointing ever far away;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where incompleteness rouses longing thoughts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With spires abrupt, and broken spheres, and circles",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cut that they may be widened evermore:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through shattered cloudy roof, looks in the sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A discord from a loftier harmony;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And tempests waken peace within our thoughts,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Driving them inward to the inmost rest.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Come, my beloved, we will haste and go",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To those pale faces of our fellow men;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our loving hearts, burning with summer-fire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will cast a glow upon their pallidness;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our hands will help them, far as servants may;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hands are apostles still to saviour-hearts.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So we may share their blessedness with them;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So may the snowdrop time be likewise ours;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Earth smile tearfully the spirit smile",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherewith she smiled upon our holiday,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As a sweet child may laugh with weeping eyes.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If ever we return, these glorious flowers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May all be snowdrops of a higher spring.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their eyes one moment met, and then they knew",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That they did mean the same thing in their hearts.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So with no farther words they turned and went",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Back to the boat, and so across the mere.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I wake from out my dream, and know my room,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My darling books, the cherub forms above;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know ’tis springtime in the world without;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I feel it springtime in my world within;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know that bending o’er an early flower,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Crocus, or primrose, or anemone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heart that striveth for a higher life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hath not yet been conquered, findeth there",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A beauty deep, unshared by any rose,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A human loveliness about the flower;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That a heath-bell upon a lonely waste",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath more than scarlet splendour on thick leaves;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That a blue opening ’midst rain-bosomed clouds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is more than Paphian sun-set harmonies;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That higher beauty dwells on earth, because",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Man seeks a higher home than Paradise;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And, having lost, is roused thereby to fill",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A deeper need than could be filled by all",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The lost ten times restored; and so he loves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The snowdrop more than the magnolia;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Spring-hope is more to him than summer-joy;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Dark towns than Eden-groves with rivers four.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}