{
 "id": "george-macdonald/the-hills",
 "title": "The Hills",
 "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": 2,
 "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": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/george-macdonald_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
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   "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": 8,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 41,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Behind my father’s cottage lies",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A gentle grassy height",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Up which I often ran⁠—to gaze",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Back with a wondering sight,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For then the chimneys I thought high",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were down below me quite!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All round, where’er I turned mine eyes,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Huge hills closed up the view;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The town ’mid their converging roots",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was clasped by rivers two;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "From, one range to another sprang",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sky’s great vault of blue.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It was a joy to climb their sides,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in the heather lie!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A joy to look at vantage down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the castle grim and high!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Blue streams below, white clouds above,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In silent earth and sky!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And now, where’er my feet may roam,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "At sight of stranger hill",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A new sense of the old delight",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Springs in my bosom still,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And longings for the high unknown",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Their ancient channels fill.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For I am always climbing hills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the known to the unknown⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Surely, at last, on some high peak,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To find my Father’s throne,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Though hitherto I have only found",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His footsteps in the stone!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And in my wanderings I did meet",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another searching too:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The dawning hope, the shared quest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our thoughts together drew;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Fearless she laid her band in mine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Because her heart was true.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She was not born among the hills,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet on each mountain face",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "A something known her inward eye",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By inborn light can trace;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "For up the hills must homeward be,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though no one knows the place.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Clasp my hand close, my child, in thine⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A long way we have come!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Clasp my hand closer yet, my child,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Farther we yet must roam⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Climbing and climbing till we reach",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our heavenly father’s home.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}