{
 "id": "george-macdonald/a-song-in-the-night-2",
 "title": "A Song in the Night",
 "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": null,
 "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": 12,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I would I were an angel strong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An angel of the sun, hasting along!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I would I were just come awake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A child outbursting from night’s dusky brake!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Or lark whose inward, upward fate",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Mocks every wall that masks the heavenly gate!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Or hopeful cock whose clarion clear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shrills ten times ere a film of dawn appear!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Or but a glowworm: even then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My light would come straight from the Light of Men!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I am a dead seed, dark and slow:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Father of larks and children, make me grow.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}