{
 "id": "george-macdonald/summer-song",
 "title": "Summer Song",
 "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": 48,
 "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": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 45,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Murmuring, ’twixt a murmur and moan,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Many a tune in a single tone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For every ear with a secret true⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sea-shell wants to whisper to you.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Yes⁠—I hear it⁠—far and faint,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like the muffled sounds of a summer rain;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like the wash of dreams in a weary brain.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“By smiling lip and fixed eye,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "You are hearing a song within the sigh:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The murmurer has many a lovely phrase⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tell me, darling, the words it says.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“I hear a wind on a boatless main",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sigh like the last of a vanishing pain;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the dreaming waters dreams the moon⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But I hear no words in the doubtful tune.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“If it tell thee not that I love thee well,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis a senseless, wrinkled, ill-curved shell:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If it be not of love, why sigh or sing?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "’Tis a common, mechanical, stupid thing!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“It murmurs, it whispers, with prophet voice",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a peace that comes, of a sealed choice;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It says not a word of your love to me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But it tells me I love you eternally.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}