{
 "id": "george-macdonald/a-song-of-the-waiting-dead",
 "title": "A Song of the Waiting Dead",
 "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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 36,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "With us there is no gray fearing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With us no aching for lack!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For the morn it is always nearing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the night is at our back.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "At times a song will fall dumb,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A thought-bell burst in a sigh,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But no one says, “He will not come!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She says, “He is almost nigh!”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The thing you call a sorrow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is our delight on its way:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We know that the coming morrow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Comes on the wheels of to-day!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Our Past is a child asleep;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Delay is ripening the kiss;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The rising tear we will not weep",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Until it flow for bliss.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}