{
 "id": "george-macdonald/blind-sorrow",
 "title": "Blind Sorrow",
 "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": 44,
 "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": [
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8949",
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   "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": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 52,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "“My life is drear; walking I labour sore;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heart in me is heavy as a stone;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And of my sorrows this the icy core:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Life is so wide, and I am all alone!”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou did’st walk so, with heaven-born eyes down bent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the earth’s gold-rosy, radiant clay,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That thou had’st seen no star in all God’s tent",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had not thy tears made pools first on the way.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, little knowest thou the tender care",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In a love-plenteous cloak around thee thrown!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Full many a dim-seen, saving mountain-stair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Toiling thou climb’st⁠—but not one step alone!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lift but thy languid head and see thy guide;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let thy steps go in his, nor choose thine own;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then soon wilt thou, thine eyes with wonder wide,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Cry, “Now I know I never was alone!”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}