{
 "id": "george-macdonald/sympathy",
 "title": "Sympathy",
 "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": 17,
 "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": 32,
  "n_stanzas": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 43,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Grief held me silent in my seat;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I neither moved nor smiled:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Joy held her silent at my feet,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My shining lily-child.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She raised her face and looked in mine;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She deemed herself denied;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The door was shut, there was no shine;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Poor she was left outside!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Once, twice, three times, with infant grace",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her lips my name did mould;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Her face was pulling at my face⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "She was but ten months old.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I saw; the sight rebuked my sighs;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It made me think⁠—Does God",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Need help from his poor children’s eyes",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To ease him of his load?",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, if he did, how seldom then",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Father would be glad!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "If comfort lay in the eyes of men,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He little comfort had!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We cry to him in evil case,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When comfort sore we lack;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And when we troubled seek his face,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Consoled he sends us back;",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nor waits for prayer to rise and climb⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He wakes the sleeping prayer;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He is our father all the time,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And servant everywhere.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I looked not up; foreboding hid",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Kept down my heart the while;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "’Twas he looked up; my Father did",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Smile in my infant’s smile.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}