{
 "id": "george-macdonald/the-childrens-heaven",
 "title": "The Children’s Heaven",
 "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": 35,
 "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": 48,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "The infant lies in blessed ease",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon his mother’s breast;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "No storm, no dark, the baby sees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Invade his heaven of rest.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He nothing knows of change or death⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her face his holy skies;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The air he breathes, his mother’s breath;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His stars, his mother’s eyes!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet half the soft winds wandering there",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Are sighs that come of fears;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The dew slow falling through that air⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is the dew of tears;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And ah, my child, thy heavenly home",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hath storms as well as dew;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Black clouds fill sometimes all its dome,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And quench the starry blue!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“My smile would win no smile again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If baby saw the things",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "That ache across his mother’s brain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The while to him she sings!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Thy faith in me is faith in vain⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I am not what I seem:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "O dreary day, O cruel pain,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That wakes thee from thy dream!”",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nay, pity not his dreams so fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Fear thou no waking grief;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Oh, safer he than though thou were",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Good as his vague belief!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "There is a heaven that heaven above",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whereon he gazes now;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A truer love than in thy kiss;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A better friend than thou!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The Father’s arms fold like a nest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Both thee and him about;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "His face looks down, a heaven of rest,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where comes no dark, no doubt.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Its mists are clouds of stars that move",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On, on, with progress rife;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Its winds, the goings of his love;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Its dew, the dew of life.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We for our children seek thy heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For them we lift our eyes:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Lord, should their faith in us depart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Let faith in thee arise.",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "When childhood’s visions them forsake,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To women grown and men,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Back to thy heart their hearts oh take,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And bid them dream again.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}