{
 "id": "george-macdonald/to-any-friend",
 "title": "To Any Friend",
 "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": 40,
 "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": 20,
  "n_stanzas": 5,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "If I did seem to you no more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than to myself I seem,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Not thus you would fling wide the door,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And on the beggar beam!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "You would not don your radiant best,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or dole me more than half!",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Poor palmer I, no angel guest;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A shaking reed my staff!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "At home, no rich fruit, hanging low,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have I for Love to pull;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Only unripe things that must grow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till Autumn’s maund be full!",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But I forsake my niggard leas,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My orchard, too late hoar,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And wander over lands and seas",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To find the Father’s door.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "When I have reached the ancestral farm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have clomb the steepy hill,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "And round me rests the Father’s arm,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then think me what you will.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}