{
 "id": "george-macdonald/love-is-strength",
 "title": "Love Is Strength",
 "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": 40,
 "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",
   "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Love alone is great in might,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Makes the heavy burden light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smooths rough ways to weary feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Makes the bitter morsel sweet:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love alone is strength!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Might that is not born of Love",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is not Might born from above,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Has its birthplace down below",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where they neither reap nor sow:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love alone is strength!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Love is stronger than all force,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is its own eternal source;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Might is always in decay,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love grows fresher every day:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Love alone is strength!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Little ones, no ill can chance;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fear ye not, but sing and dance;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though the high-heaved heaven should fall",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God is plenty for us all:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God is Love and Strength!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}