{
 "id": "george-macdonald/the-shadows",
 "title": "The Shadows",
 "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": 71,
 "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": 40,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "My little boy, with smooth, fair cheeks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dreamy, large, brown eyes,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Not often, little wisehead, speaks,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But hearing, weighs and tries.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“God is not only in the sky,”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His sister said one day⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Not older much, but she would cry",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like Wisdom in the way⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“He’s in this room.” His dreamy, clear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Large eyes look round for God:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In vain they search, in vain they peer;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His wits are all abroad!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“He is not here, mamma? No, no;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I do not see him at all!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "He’s not the shadows, is he?” So",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "His doubtful accents fall⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Fall on my heart, no babble mere!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They rouse both love and shame:",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But for earth’s loneliness and fear,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I might be saying the same!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Nay, sometimes, ere the morning break",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And home the shadows flee,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "In my dim room even yet I take",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Those shadows, Lord, for thee!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}