{
 "id": "george-macdonald/reciprocity",
 "title": "Reciprocity",
 "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": 70,
 "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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Her mother, Elfie older grown,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One evening, for adieu,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Said, “You’ll not mind being left alone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For God takes care of you!”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In child-way her heart’s eye did see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The correlation’s node:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "“Yes,” she said, “God takes care o’ me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "An’ I take care o’ God.”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The child and woman were the same,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She changed not, only grew;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twixt God and her no shadow came:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The true is always true!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As daughter, sister, promised wife,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her heart with love did brim:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Now, sure, it brims as full of life,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hid fourteen years in him!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}