{
 "id": "george-macdonald/dejection",
 "title": "Dejection",
 "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": 62,
 "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": {
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  "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": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 43,
  "max_indent": 4
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "O Father, I am in the dark,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My soul is heavy-bowed:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I send my prayer up like a lark,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Up through my vapoury shroud,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "To find thee,",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And remind thee",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "I am thy child, and thou my father,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though round me death itself should gather.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lay thy loved hand upon my head,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let thy heart beat in mine;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "One thought from thee, when all seems dead,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will make the darkness shine",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "About me",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And throughout me!",
    "indent": 4
   },
   {
    "text": "And should again the dull night gather,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ll cry again, “Thou art my father.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}