{
 "id": "george-macdonald/riddles",
 "title": "Riddles",
 "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": 69,
 "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": {
  "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": 40,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 3
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I have only one foot, but thousands of toes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My one foot stands well, but never goes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I’ve a good many arms, if you count them all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But hundreds of fingers, large and small;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the ends of my fingers my beauty grows;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I breathe with my hair, and I drink with my toes;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I grow bigger and bigger about the waist",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Although I am always very tight laced;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "None e’er saw me eat⁠—I’ve no mouth to bite!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet I eat all day, and digest all night.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the summer, with song I shake and quiver,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But in winter I fast and groan and shiver.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "There is a plough that hath no share,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only a coulter that parteth fair;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But the ridges they rise",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "To a terrible size",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Or ever the coulter comes near to tear:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The horses and ridges fierce battle make;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The horses are safe, but the plough may break.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Seed cast in its furrows, or green or sear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Will lift to the sun neither blade nor ear:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Down it drops plumb",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Where no spring-times come,",
    "indent": 3
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor needeth it any harrowing gear;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Wheat nor poppy nor blade has been found",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Able to grow on the naked ground.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Who is it that sleeps like a top all night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And wakes in the morning so fresh and bright",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That he breaks his bed as he gets up,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And leaves it smashed like a china cup?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I’ve a very long nose, but what of that?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is not too long to lie on a mat!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I have very big jaws, but never get fat:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I don’t go to church, and I’m not a church rat!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I’ve a mouth in my middle my food goes in at,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Just like a skate’s⁠—that’s a fish that’s a flat.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "In summer I’m seldom able to breathe,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But when winter his blades in ice doth sheathe",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I swell my one lung, I look big and I puff,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And I sometimes hiss.⁠—There, that’s enough!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}