{
 "id": "george-macdonald/appeal",
 "title": "Appeal",
 "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": 63,
 "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": 3,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 36,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "If in my arms I bore my child,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Would he cry out for fear",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Because the night was dark and wild",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And no one else was near?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Shall I then treat thee, Father, as",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My fatherhood would grieve?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I will be hopeful, though, alas,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I cannot quite believe!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I had no power, no wish to be:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou madest me half blind!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The darkness comes! I cling to thee!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be thou my perfect mind.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}