{
 "id": "george-macdonald/general-gordon",
 "title": "General Gordon",
 "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": 13,
 "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": 28,
  "n_stanzas": 2,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Victorious through failure! faithful Lord,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who for twelve angel legions wouldst not pray",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From thine own country of eternal day,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To shield thee from the lanterned traitor horde,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Making thy one rash servant sheathe his sword!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our long retarded legions, on their way,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Toiling through sands, and shouldering Nile’s down-sway,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To reach thy soldier, keeping at thy word,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou sawest foiled⁠—but glorifiedst him,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over ten cities giving him thy rule!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We will not mourn a star that grew not dim,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A soldier-child of God gone home from school!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A dregless cup, with life brimmed, he did quaff,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And quaffs it now with Christ’s imperial staff!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Another to the witnesses’ roll-call",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath answered, “Here I am!” and so stepped out⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With willingness crowned everywhere about,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not the head only, but the body all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In one great nimbus of obedient fall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His heart’s blood dashing in the face of doubt⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love’s last victorious stand amid the rout!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Silence is left, and the untasted gall.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No chariot with ramping steeds of fire",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Father sent to fetch his man-child home;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His brother only called, “My Gordon, come!”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And like a dove to heaven he did aspire,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His one wing Death, his other, Heart’s-desire.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—Farewell a while! we climb where thou hast clomb!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}