{
 "id": "george-macdonald/the-unseen-face",
 "title": "The Unseen Face",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "George MacDonald",
 "poet_slug": "george-macdonald",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "A Hidden Life and Other Poems",
 "book_slug": "a-hidden-life-and-other-poems",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": null,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1864,
  "venue": "A Hidden Life and Other Poems (1864)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1864 volume A Hidden Life and Other Poems, which is the printing this text derives from rather than the poem's first appearance: the same poems stand at the same page numbers in MacDonald's Poems (London, 1857), so an earlier printing is known and 1864 is not it. Whether the 1857 volume or a periodical printed the poem first has not been established here.",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_N7tfAAAAMAAJ",
   "https://archive.org/details/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft",
   "https://archive.org/metadata/hiddenlifeandoth00macduoft"
  ]
 },
 "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": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 55,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "“I do beseech thee, God, show me thy face.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Come up to me in Sinai on the morn!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou shall behold as much as may be borne.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And on a rock stood Moses, lone in space.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From Sinai’s top, the vaporous, thunderous place,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "God passed in cloud, an earthy garment worn",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To hide, and thus reveal. In love, not scorn,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He put him in a clift of the rock’s base,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Covered him with his hand, his eyes to screen⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Passed⁠—lifted it: his back alone appears!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Ah, Moses, had he turned, and hadst thou seen",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The pale face crowned with thorns, baptized with tears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The eyes of the true man, by men belied,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou hadst beheld God’s face, and straightway died!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}