{
 "id": "george-macdonald/christmas-song-of-the-old-children",
 "title": "Christmas Song of the Old Children",
 "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": 29,
 "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": 42,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 38,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Well for youth to seek the strong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beautiful, and brave!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "We, the old, who walk along",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gently to the grave,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Only pay our court to thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Child of all Eternity!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We are old who once were young,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And we grow more old;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Songs we are that have been sung,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tales that have been told;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Yellow leaves, wind-blown to thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Childhood of Eternity!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If we come too sudden near,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lo, Earth’s infant cries,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For our faces wan and drear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have such withered eyes!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou, Heaven’s child, turn’st not away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the wrinkled ones who pray!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Smile upon us with thy mouth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thine eyes of grace;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "On our cold north breathe thy south.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thaw the frozen face:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Childhood all from thee doth flow⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Melt to song our age’s snow.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Gray-haired children come in crowds,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thee, their Hope, to greet:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Is it swaddling clothes or shrouds",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hampering so our feet?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Eldest child, the shadows gloom:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Take the aged children home.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We have had enough of play,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the wood grows drear;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Many who at break of day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Companied us here⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They have vanished out of sight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gone and met the coming light!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Fair is this out-world of thine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But its nights are cold;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sun that makes it fine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Makes us soon so old!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Long its shadows grow and dim⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Father, take us back with him!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}