{
 "id": "george-macdonald/said-and-did",
 "title": "Said and Did",
 "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": 78,
 "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": 16,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Said the boy as he read, “I too will be bold,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will fight for the truth and its glory!”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He went to the playground, and soon had told",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A very cowardly story!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Said the girl as she read, “That was grand, I declare!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What a true, what a lovely, sweet soul!”",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In half-an-hour she went up the stair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Looking as black as a coal!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“The mean little wretch, I wish I could fling",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This book at his head!” said another;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Then he went and did the same ugly thing",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To his own little trusting brother!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Alas for him who sees a thing grand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And does not fit himself to it!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But the meanest act, on sea or on land,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is to find a fault, and then do it!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}