{
 "id": "george-macdonald/the-trees-prayer",
 "title": "The Tree’s Prayer",
 "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": 4,
 "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/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": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 9,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 56,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Alas, ’tis cold and dark!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wind all night hath sung a wintry tune!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hail from black clouds that swallowed up the moon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beat, beat against my bark.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh! why delays the spring?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not yet the sap moves in my frozen veins;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Through all my stiffened roots creep numbing pains,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I can hardly cling.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The sun shone yester-morn;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I felt the glow down every fibre float,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And thought I heard a thrush’s piping note",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of dim dream-gladness born.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Then, on the salt gale driven,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The streaming cloud hissed through my outstretched arms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Tossed me about in slanting snowy swarms,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And blotted out the heaven.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "All night I brood and choose",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Among past joys. Oh, for the breath of June!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The feathery light-flakes quavering from the moon",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The slow baptizing dews!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Oh, the joy-frantic birds!⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "They are the tongues of us, mute, longing trees!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Aha, the billowy odours! and the bees",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That browse like scattered herds!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The comfort-whispering showers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That thrill with gratefulness my youngest shoot!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The children playing round my deep-sunk root,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Green-caved from burning hours!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "See, see the heartless dawn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With naked, chilly arms latticed across!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Another weary day of moaning loss",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On the thin-shadowed lawn!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But icy winter’s past;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yea, climbing suns persuade the relenting wind:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I will endure with steadfast, patient mind;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My leaves will come at last!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}