{
 "id": "george-macdonald/a-thanksgiving",
 "title": "A Thanksgiving",
 "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": 8,
 "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": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I Thank Thee, boundless Giver,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the thoughts Thou givest flow",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In sounds that like a river",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All through the darkness go.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And though few should swell the pleasure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By sharing this my wine,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My heart will clasp its treasure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This secret gift of Thine.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My heart the joy inherits,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And will oft be sung to rest;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And some wandering hoping spirits",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "May listen and be blest.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For the sound may break the hours",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a dark and gloomy mood,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "As the wind breaks up the bowers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of the brooding sunless wood.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For every sound of gladness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is a prophet-wind that tells",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a summer without sadness,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And a love without farewells;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And a heart that hath no ailing,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And an eye that is not dim,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And a faith that without failing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall be complete in Him.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And when my heart is mourning,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The songs it lately gave,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Back to their fount returning,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Make sweet the bitter wave;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And forth a new stream floweth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In sunshine winding fair;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And through the dark wood goeth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Glad laughter on the air.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For the heart of man that waketh,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet hath not ceased to dream,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Is the only fount that maketh",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sweet and bitter stream.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But the sweet will still be flowing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the bitter stream is dry,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And glad music only going",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the breezes of the sky.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I thank Thee, boundless Giver,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That the thoughts Thou givest flow",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In sounds that like a river",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All through the darkness go.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And though few should swell the pleasure",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By sharing this my wine,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My heart will clasp its treasure,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This secret gift of Thine.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}