{
 "id": "george-macdonald/i-know-what-beauty-is",
 "title": "I Know What Beauty Is",
 "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": 16,
 "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": [
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   "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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I know what beauty is, for thou",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hast set the world within my heart;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Of me thou madest it a part;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I never loved it more than now.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I know the Sabbath afternoons;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The light asleep upon the graves:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Against the sky the poplar waves;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The river murmurs organ tunes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I know the spring with bud and bell;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The hush in summer woods at night;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Autumn, when trees let in more light;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Fantastic winter’s lovely spell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I know the rapture music gives,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its mystery of ordered tones:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Dream-muffled soul, it loves and moans,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, half-alive, comes in and lives.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And verse I know, whose concord high",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of thought and music lifts the soul",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Where many a glimmering starry shoal",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Glides through the Godhead’s living sky.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yea, Beauty’s regnant All I know⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The imperial head, the thoughtful eyes;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The God-imprisoned harmonies",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That out in gracious motions go.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But I leave all, O Son of man,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put off my shoes, and come to thee!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Most lovely thou of all I see,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Most potent thou of all that can!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As child forsakes his favourite toy,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His sisters’ sport, his new-found nest,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And, climbing to his mother’s breast,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Enjoys yet more his late-left joy⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I lose to find. On fair-browed bride",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fair pearls their fairest light afford;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "So, gathered round thy glory, Lord,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "All glory else is glorified.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}