{
 "id": "george-macdonald/christmas-1873",
 "title": "Christmas, 1873",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "George MacDonald",
 "poet_slug": "george-macdonald",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Volume I",
 "book_slug": "poetical-works-vol-1",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 24,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1893,
  "venue": "The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Volume I (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/poeticalworks01macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/metadata/poeticalworks01macduoft",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9543"
  ]
 },
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 37,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Christmas-Days are still in store:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will they change⁠—steal faded hither?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Or come fresh as heretofore,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Summering all our winter weather?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Surely they will keep their bloom",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All the countless pacing ages:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In the country whence they come",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Children only are the sages!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Hither, every hour and year,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Children come to cure our oldness⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Oft, alas, to gather sear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Unbelief, and earthy boldness!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Men they grow and women cold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Selfish, passionate, and plaining!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Ever faster they grow old:⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the world, ah, eld is gaining!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Child, whose childhood ne’er departs!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Jesus, with the perfect father!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Drive the age from parents’ hearts;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To thy heart the children gather.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Send thy birth into our souls,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With its grand and tender story.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Hark! the gracious thunder rolls!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "News to men! to God old glory!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}