{
 "id": "george-macdonald/professor-noctutus",
 "title": "Professor Noctutus",
 "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": 67,
 "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",
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   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10578",
   "https://archive.org/details/bookofstrifeinfo00macd",
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   "https://archive.org/details/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/discipleandothe02macdgoog",
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   "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 50,
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Nobody knows the world but me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The rest go to bed; I sit up and see.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’m a better observer than any of you all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For I never look out till the twilight fall,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And never then without green glasses,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that is how my wisdom passes.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I never think, for that is not fit:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I observe. I have seen the white moon sit",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On her nest, the sea, like a fluffy owl,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hatching the boats and the long-legged fowl!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the oysters gape⁠—you may make a note⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She drops a pearl into every throat.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I can see the wind: can you do that?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I see the dreams he has in his hat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I see him shaking them out as he goes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I see them rush in at man’s snoring nose.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ten thousand things you could not think,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I can write down plain with pen and ink!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You know that I know; therefore pull off your hat,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whether round and tall, or square and flat:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You cannot do better than trust in me;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You may shut your eyes in fact⁠—I see!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lifelong I will lead you, and then, like the owl,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will bury you nicely with my spade and showl.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}