{
 "id": "george-macdonald/to-aubrey-de-vere",
 "title": "To Aubrey de Vere",
 "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": 12,
 "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": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 49,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Ray of the Dawn of Truth, Aubrey de Vere,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Forgive my play fantastic with thy name,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Distilling its true essence by the flame",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Which Love ’neath Fancy’s limbeck lighteth clear.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I know not what thy semblance, what thy cheer;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If, as thy spirit, hale thy bodily frame,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Or furthering by failure each high aim;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If green thy leaf, or, like mine, growing sear;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But this I think, that thou wilt, by and by⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Two journeys stoutly, therefore safely trod⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We laying down the staff, and He the rod⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So look on me I shall not need to cry⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“We must be brothers, Aubrey, thou and I:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "We mean the same thing⁠—will the will of God!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}