{
 "id": "george-macdonald/i-would-i-were-a-child",
 "title": "I Would I Were a Child",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "George MacDonald",
 "poet_slug": "george-macdonald",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "A Hidden Life and Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "a-hidden-life-and-other-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 4,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1864,
  "venue": "A Hidden Life and Other Poems (1864)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1864 volume A Hidden Life and Other Poems, which is the printing this text derives from rather than the poem's first appearance: the same poems stand at the same page numbers in MacDonald's Poems (London, 1857), so an earlier printing is known and 1864 is not it. Whether the 1857 volume or a periodical printed the poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_N7tfAAAAMAAJ",
   "https://archive.org/details/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/metadata/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft"
  ]
 },
 "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": 52,
  "n_stanzas": 13,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I would I were a child,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That I might look, and laugh, and say, My Father!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And follow thee with running feet, or rather",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Be led through dark and wild!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How I would hold thy hand,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My glad eyes often to thy glory lifting!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Should darkness ’twixt thy face and mine come drifting,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My heart would but expand.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "If an ill thing came near,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I would but creep within thy mantle’s folding,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shut my eyes close, thy hand yet faster holding,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And soon forget my fear.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O soul, O soul, rejoice!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou art God’s child indeed, for all thy sinning;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A poor weak child, yet his, and worth the winning",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With saviour eyes and voice.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Who spake the words? Didst Thou?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "They are too good, even for such a giver:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such water drinking once, I should feel ever",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As I had drunk but now.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet sure the Word said so,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Teaching our lips to cry with his, Our Father!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Telling the tale of him who once did gather",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His goods to him, and go!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, thou dost lead me, God!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But it is dark and starless, the way dreary;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Almost I sleep, I am so very weary",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon this rough hill-road.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Almost! Nay, I do sleep;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There is no darkness save in this my dreaming;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy fatherhood above, around, is beaming;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy hand my hand doth keep.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "With sighs my soul doth teem;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "I have no knowledge but that I am sleeping;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Haunted with lies, my life will fail in weeping;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wake me from this my dream.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "How long shall heavy night",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Deny the day? How long shall this dull sorrow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Say in my heart that never any morrow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will bring the friendly light?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Lord, art thou in the room?",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Come near my bed; oh, draw aside the curtain!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A child’s heart would say “Father,” were it certain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That it would not presume.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But if this dreary sleep",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "May not be broken, help thy helpless sleeper",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To rest in thee; so shall his sleep grow deeper⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For evil dreams too deep.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Father! I dare at length;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "My childhood sure will hold me free from blaming:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sinful yet hoping, I to thee come, claiming",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy tenderness, my strength.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}